


Ride

by Riastarstruck



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Amnesia!Rick, Angst, Brief Mention of Suicide, Car Sex, Drifter!Daryl, Explicit Sexual Content, Fist Fights, Gay Sex, M/M, Rickyl Writers' Group, Road Trips, Violence, non walker AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:51:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6485320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riastarstruck/pseuds/Riastarstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Non Walker AU<br/>Waking to a world he doesn’t remember Rick Grimes finds himself trying to slot into the life of the man he used to be. As he attempts to relearn who he is and his place in the world, he leaves the safe familiarity of his home and family to travel the road and learn this new world.</p><p>On the road, he meets drifter Daryl Dixon a man who is running from his own past. Together they carve out a place for themselves on the roadways of Georgia. </p><p>(Amnesia!Rick+Drifter!Daryl+sexy times+violence=Roadfic AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was originally inspired by a fanvid set to Lana Del Ray's song Ride, I have since watched that video about a hundred million times and the heard the song a hundre billion times.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcts7cSgsRg
> 
> Thanks to everyone on RWG for your support while I was writing this, you're all great.  
> Amazing thanks to Ijustwantedutoneedme for Betaing this for me and for being amazing in all ways :P
> 
> This will be frequently updated and it's mostly finished!  
> (also, no Daryl in the first chap but lots of him in the rest :D)

Waking was slow, stretched out over days.

Consciousness swam in in increments. Moments of clarity bookended by darkness.

He saw the ceiling, a face, a sunrise. The moments broken up by hazy periods of unreality that made sanity seem to slip away.

The real world warred with dreams, everything slipped through his fingers like grains of sand, some stuck, others felt as intangible and uncontainable as water.

The skin on his hand felt thick and heavy and at the same time, as thin and fragile as wet paper. It hurt to move it and he knew in the back of his mind that something was in it, that this something was meant to make him better.

When he shifted his head the pillow rustled and there was a smell in the place, oil slick and like plastic. _Antiseptic_ his mind supplied and he followed the train of that thought to _hospital_. He was in a hospital, with a thing in his hand and sleep that wasn’t restful.

He slipped back under and succumbed to the sluggish cotton wool blankness of rest.

At times he woke and saw people. They spoke to him, asked him questions and he might’ve answered though he didn’t remember what he said if he did.

He woke to a dawn of lukewarm light and an empty room. When it didn’t fade away or slip at the edges he wondered if this was wakefulness.

A nurse appeared at the door, a thin, short woman with a halo of frizzy brown hair circling her tired face. She approached without hurrying, her footsteps a muted click on the floor. She took his wrist in her cool, dry fingers and spoke.

“Welcome back Mr Grimes.” The words didn’t land, they floated through his mind and drifted in and out of focus in a way which unsettled him. “Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital.” The word tore from his dry throat like the crunch of gravel. She nodded.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

You go to hospitals when you are sick. Sick people belonged in hospitals.

When he ground out the word _sick_ he knew without seeing her brow knit that it was wrong. The word was said right but a part of him niggled that it wasn't the right one, that whatever this exhaustion and lead weighted feeling he had was, it wasn't sickness.

“What's the last thing you remember Mr Grimes?” He opened his mouth to answer, to say sunrise and oil-slick antiseptic and realised that was wrong, she wanted _before_ that.

His throat clicked when he swallowed and there was the pull of abused flesh but nothing before waking. Hazy images swam up and disappeared so quickly he couldn’t begin to distinguish them.

He swallowed again and shook his head.

“What year is it Mr Grimes?” He knew there was a place in his mind where the answer to that belonged but he couldn’t find it.

He felt a cold feeling settle along his limbs, his guts twisted and there was a low level buzz in the back of his mind but no answer. He shook his head and watched the woman keenly, taking in every shift in her posture or blip in her expression before it blanked.

Her hand moved calmly to a button beside his headboard and she nodded at him, her expression calm but for the pinching of her lips and her knitted brow. ”Mr Grimes, what is your name?”

“Mr Grimes.”

Her eyes darted to his hand which sat limply atop the bedspread by his thigh. He followed her gaze and saw the thin plastic tag around his wrist.

With difficulty, he lifted his heavy limb and angled it awkwardly so he could see the fine text on the white plastic bangle.

The text swam dizzyingly in front of him and the edges were soft and indistinct. He focused, feeling his jaw clench and his eyes narrow until the letters stopped swimming and they came a little more in focus

**Kings County General** ****  
Rick Grimes - 09/14/73  
(M) A-positive.

 

The first doctor was a harried, greying man with a yellow pallor to his skin and bloodshot eyes which peered blearily out of rimless glasses. He asked the same questions the nurse had before sending him out for scans.

Rick lay still and stared up into the ceiling of the huge coffin they placed him in and listened to the clicks and bangs of the machine. He sat passive and still when they prodded him and shone lights in his eyes and asked him question after question before abandoning him to his hospital bed once more.

The next doctor was a severe mexican woman who introduced herself briefly before getting to work.

She talked about amnesia, trauma, the neurological effects of flatlining on the operating table. How complicated the human mind was and the many and varied things that could happen.

She was cautious, saying nothing was definite and that every case was different. There was no real way of knowing what would happen, but the best thing they could do was be hopeful. He listened with half an ear.

Then he was left alone.

 

The next day they introduced him to his wife. She was tall and willowy, long, thin limbs with soft brown eyes and hair over creamy clear skin.

Her eyes were red rimmed and blotchy and her mouth wobbled as she smiled at him. She clasped his hand tightly in hers and looked like she wanted to hold him close but held herself back.

The doctors had spoken to her, told her the same things they’d told him. She spoke calmly, her words shaking only occasionally when she introduced herself to him and told him about their life together.

She watched with wide, hopeful eyes as though it would all snap into place in his mind with her cool, low voice.

It sounded like the shows on tv he let play while he dozed in the moments they left him alone.

They’d been married for fifteen years, they had a thirteen year old son, they had a house and a garden. His mother had passed away ten years ago, his father three years later, he was a police officer and his partner was his best friend, Shane. They’d been friends since school, he was godfather to their son.

He took it all in, inspecting each fact she gave him and tried to slot it into place in his head but each piece of information seemed foreign and new, not landing with any surety, just a story he’d been told.

They brought his son in an hour later. Carl was gangly limbs and big eyes in a pale face. Rick felt it in his chest, a buzz and a weight, some part of him that whispered _mine_. It was so startling he didn’t know what to do with it. It was the first thing in this new world which made any sense, which hinted at a previous connection. He watched Carl as he spoke, fascinated by this boy they said was his.

Something untwisted in his chest. It bloomed bright and warm and the tight tension which had wound its way into his limbs slowly began to melt. This was the first time he really believed there was anything in him to be found, that there was anything left of this life they told him about.

The hope carried him through their leaving, kept him from flinching when Lori pulled him into her arms carefully and pressed a kiss to his hair before leaving, her arm slung over Carl’s shoulders as she held him close to her side.

The hope stayed with him through the night as he inspected each new piece of himself. He tried to wheedle out how he felt about each new thing, until his head felt like it would crack open under the strain.

The next day they introduced him to Shane, a hulking, broad man in a sheriff's deputy uniform. He shifted uncomfortably where he stood, his hand resting casually on his gunbelt in a way Rick could tell was habitual. He was big and tanned and looked at Rick with wide, hopeful dark eyes.

Rick wanted people to stop looking at him like that.

They talked for an hour, Shane answering questions and talking about their lives together. Rick listened closely, but it was like the day before, facts and stories of a person he’d never known, places he’d never been.

Nothing seemed real, just like they were retelling stories of someone else. He knew Shane was agitated when he left, his broad shoulders were tense and Rick imagined he was as frustrated as Rick was.

The hope started to fade there.

He plunged into the depths of his mind, searched every corner and dark place to find something, anything from his previous life. He spent an hour with Lori every morning, another with Lori and Carl in the afternoon and time with Shane every other day.

The hope in their eyes started fading too, each time they entered his room they looked at him with bright expectant eyes and it dimmed every time he didn’t remember.

It twisted in his gut, turning into resentment and anger. He wanted to remember and their expectant faces only drove home the fact that he was failing.

As they weaned him off his medication and his wound finished healing by increments, the dreams started. It was like clawing upwards through deep water, drowning and scraping his way up from the depth of an unknowable past.

Some nights there was gunfire in his head, hot and cold in his blood, a dead weight to his limbs, a crushing of his chest and pain, so much pain.

It took him a while to realise it was the shooting that had landed him here. He resented the dream, hated how it tore through his nights and left him gasping.

It drained him, made him weak and tired when he was awake and weighed his limbs down with listlessness which sapped any remaining energy from him.

Lori and Shane worried, they tried to hide it but it was easy to see. It was strange to have people he didn’t know worry so much. He had to remind himself that they did know him, they knew him better than he did.

It wasn’t rational to resent a man he’d once been and didn’t know. To be jealous of the way people loved him, cared and worried about him. The way they spoke about him, said how he was a good man, a good cop.

To hear them talk about him, Rick would believe he was kind, gentle and loving but something about that didn’t sit right, didn’t ring true to the dark, cold rock in his guts.

He knew he was calm and sure, knew he had an analytical mind he couldn’t shut off and a feeling in his limbs sometimes, like electricity running down his bones in a way he knew would promise violence.

He didn’t mention it. The shrink they made him talk to watched him expectantly and he wondered if she was waiting for him to tell her about it, about how he assessed every room they put him in for exits and blind spots. It didn’t seem like something the man they told him about would do.

He wondered if he woke up wrong, whether there was something missing beside his memories and what was left was something the old Rick had suppressed and managed to hide from those closest to him.

They all spoke to him with the same low, soothing voice that was purposely calm and reassuring. It grated against his raw nerves.

He appreciated Dr Lopez, who used the same brisk voice no matter what she was telling him. He liked the confidence in it and could almost believe her when she said his memories could come back. Though with each passing day she transitioned smoothly into telling him how complex his situation was and how every case was different and it was impossible to know how his would play out.

After three weeks, when his injury had healed quite well and there was no sign of the infection which had whispered around the edges of his recovery, they sent him home.

His shrink gave his discharge into the care of his family her approval, soft eyes distant as she arranged for him to continue with twice weekly sessions with her and look to cutting that down.

He signed where they told him to, hesitating only briefly over his name as he listened to the doctor talk him through his medications and gentle exercises to strengthen his side. The doctor cautioned him again, voices stern and expressions strict, to return if there were any problems or pain.

At his side Lori nodded firmly, eyes wide and earnest as she took it all in.

She drove him to their house and cast furtive glances at him as he watched the world that passed by through the windows.

He didn’t settle immediately. The house was cozy and lived in, it held the intimate details of a life and he felt strange walking through the rooms, hesitating before touching anything and cautious of leaving any impression on the place.

Lori doted on him, she fluttered around as she helped him settle, offering him food and drink, arranging him on the couch in the lounge room with infinite care before making him a sandwich just in case.

He let her, hating the sad, hurt and lost look which bloomed on her face whenever he insisted he was fine.

 

Eventually they settled into a routine and set about the slow, steady relearning of each other. Trying to knit back the family unit they had been.

Rick set about relearning himself. He tasted each food with care, determining what he liked and disliked and tried to ignore the confusion on his family's face when he professed a like for something his previous self had never enjoyed. It grated on him, it made it difficult to figure himself out when everyone around him seemed to already have a firm idea of who he was.

He found himself wishing for space, for non judgemental companionship while he figured it all out, a reassuring hand which only guided him when he needed it, not when he approached every new thing.

Carl was the easiest to be around, a childlike bluntness when he bothered to correct or ask questions. The rest of the time he was happy to just spend time with Rick, only occasionally looking at him hopefully and while it made his heart ache to disappoint him, Carl’s disappointment wasn’t as pointed or weighty as Lori or Shane’s somehow.

He knew they didn’t mean it, but they missed their friend and husband and Rick didn’t know what to do to make it easier for them. He watched for cues, studied how they interacted and tried to figure out how he fit into the space they’d left for him.

It was easier to be alone sometimes, where he could explore by himself and figure out who and what he was. He didn’t sleep much. He spent his days resting and letting Lori help him with whatever little thing he needed to do, so he spent nights staring up at the bland, impersonal ceiling of the guest room.

The house was silent at night. Rick began prowling the rooms, taking his time to explore while the house slept.

He moved through the spaces with silent steps, taking the time to look at the pictures of his own face, beaming up from framed photographs, his arm around Lori, Shane or Carl.

There were pictures of people he didn’t recognise, places he’d apparently been. There was a photo of Lori in a wedding dress, smiling sweetly at the camera. Rick wondered where that had been taken, how he’d felt that day.

He moved into the living room, through the kitchen and laundry, picking out things he knew and things he thought he should.

Looking around at the large kitchen he let his eyes wander out to the shadows of the garden outside. There were patches of deep grey sky through the trees and he leant his weight against the countertop to look up over the rooftops to the swirls of black, grey and midnight blue which obscured the stars that should be there.

There were light footsteps on the stairs and Rick cocked his head to listen to them approach.

Carl looked small in his pyjamas, his short dark hair mussed and his face soft from sleep. He entered cautiously and it took him till he was halfway across the room before he saw Rick watching him from the corner.

“Dad?” The word seemed both foreign and right in Rick’s head. Some part of him, quiet and muffled in the back of his mind and chest buzzed and hummed in agreement. It was the only thing in this new, strange world that seemed right. “You okay dad? Should I get mum?”

Rick shook his head and relaxed back against the counter and looked at his son.

“No, I just couldn’t sleep.” Carl bobbed his head in a nod and continued to the fridge. That nod was a movement Rick recognised from Shane and he found himself wondering when he’d learnt it from the other man.

The yellow light from the fridge was blindingly bright in the dark room and Rick resisted looking away from it. Carl was haloed as he looked at the contents of the fridge, pulling out the carton of milk after a moment’s search.

Carl turned and got a glass off the sink and busied himself with pouring, leaving the carton open on the counter when he turned to face Rick, eyes focused on the milk in his glass. The bright yellow light painted them both in hard highlights and deep shadows.

“You don’t remember any of this do you?”

“No.” Carl curled his lips into his mouth and nodded down at his glass of milk before glancing up at Rick.

“Do you remember me?”

“A little. I know you’re my son, I know I love you. I just don’t remember… what your favourite food is, or anything else.” It was hard to put words to it, a purely instinctual thing, a feeling of _mine_ and _kin_ , animal impulses that marked Carl as his own in a way he didn’t understand. Even though he knew next to nothing about his son beyond what he had been told and had observed himself.

“Do you remember mum?” Rick shook his head. Carl swallowed visibly and shifted his bare feet, toes flexing against the wooden floor as his fingers slid on the condensation that had built up on his glass. “Do you… do you love her?”

“I don’t remember.”

Carl looked at him with wide blue eyes that looked older than they should. His gaze was steady, watching him calmly through the dim shadows of the night. Even if he looked older and wiser than his years, there was a youthful innocence to his face, a wide open hopefulness which tore a little at Rick’s heart.

He wished he could make it better, could tell Carl it was just a matter of time, that of course he loved his mother and they would all return to normal and everything would be alright.

“Go to bed Carl, you have school in the morning.” Carl bobbed his head and turned, glass clutched in his hand, and headed to the door.

“Night dad.” he called over his shoulder without looking back. Rick smiled at the retreating figure and pushed away from the counter, closing the carton and returning it to the shelf in the fridge.

“Night son.”

 

The thing about restlessness was, if it wasn’t soothed, it didn’t go away. It grew and mutated. An itch under the skin that can’t be reached and a driving, nagging feeling from deep within that urged you to _move,_ to _act_ , to do something but you didn’t know what.

It was better than listlessness, the foggy state of emptiness which had ruled his days after he first woke up, exacerbated by the healing wound in his side. Time had had no reason, no logic to which it adhered, it had been a weight which smothered him and it had felt like drowning, moving through water towards a world which was no longer his own.

At least with the restlessness he felt wired, energised beyond the point of endurance almost. He prowled the house, moving through the spaces and watching the world through any window he came across.

Lori watched him warily sometimes when she thought he couldn’t see her. Shane watched him openly with a frown. He tried to reign himself in when he was with Carl, turned the buzzing energy to a purpose and got to know his son.

In the moments they left him alone in the house, longer periods as time went on and he learnt to smile brightly and insisted he’d be fine for an hour or two, he’d make his way through the house meticulously.

Every morning and afternoon when Lori left the house to drive Carl to or from school and run a few errands while she was out, Rick inspected the house, every square inch gone over with careful scrutiny.

The cushions on the couch were removed and returned to the same place with care, each book was leafed through and every drawer and cupboard was inspected. He searched as though he was looking for a vital clue which he didn’t know the name or shape of, it could be anything and he treated everything he found with the same level of care so he didn’t miss anything.

He did it as though he’d been trained to, and he supposed he might have been. They said he was a cop, had photos of him in uniform displayed proudly around the house and one or two clippings from the local newspaper and a selection of ones covering the shooting were tucked away in a cupboard in the kitchen that had photo albums and mementos of a shared life.

The thought was strange, that procedural protocol remained more deeply ingrained in his mind than his family.

He searched each room individually, taking the time into consideration and breaking the rooms down to sections he knew he could complete with the appropriate scrutiny in the allotted time.

It was a comfort to have a purpose, however unnecessary it was. He knew logically he could look at anything he wanted, could have Lori or Shane or even Carl help him and fill in the blanks of every item in the house. He wouldn’t have to hunt so carefully then, wouldn’t have to sift and sort the pieces he found with such diligence to get them to make any kind of sense.

It was voyeuristic, combing through the remnants of a life, and he wondered if who he used to be had felt the same way, whether looking through the possessions left behind by the victims of crimes had ever unsettled him.

He thought about asking someone, sitting them down and asking them to explain him to himself. This cop who had medals for service and commendations locked away in a forgotten drawer in an unused room.

The newspaper articles said he was a good cop, said his superiors commended him and the service of him and his partner.

The ones after the shooting positively glowed with praise and admiration but Rick had trouble reading them, hated how they sounded so much like propaganda and false praise for a man he didn’t know.

He didn’t ask anyone, he was sure they’d answer and believe they were truthful when they told him they loved him, that he was good and smart and a loving father and husband. He didn’t want to hear that, he wanted to hear the things they wouldn't want to tell him.

 

He found the key on the top of the doorframe in the hall. It took him a day and most of the next morning before he found the lock it fit into on his continued, endless search of the house.

There was a shotgun and a bright silver revolver with a warm wooden handle inside the case. His fingers were caressing the revolver before he’d even realised.

The metal was cool and smooth, highly polished and carefully looked after. When he lifted it his hand gripped with confidence, fingers moulding around the handle as though he was born holding it. The weight was reassuring, it sat comfortably in the grooves and calluses of his palm and he stood staring at the gun in his hand for an endless moment before he heard Lori’s car pull up into the driveway.

Reluctantly, he put the gun back in the cabinet and closed the doors on it gently, closing his eyes with the click of the lock and taking a steadying breath before slipping the key into his pocket and turning away to walk into the kitchen.

He leant against the counter, staring blankly down at the pale counter top and drank deeply from a glass of water as Lori entered the house, greeting him cheerfully and looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

 

The moment Lori and Carl left the next morning Rick was at the cabinet with his key in hand. He noticed other things this time, now that his world wasn’t taken up by the revolver. Everything was neatly laid out, badge and handcuffs lovingly lined up along the side of the cabinet. The insignia polished to a high shine, its chain coiled around it like a sleeping snake.

He didn’t touch the badge or the gun, he moved to the box of ammo on the other side of the shelf and ran his fingers over the hard domed heads, absently counting.

He was tempted to take the gun with him, keep the comforting and familiar weight at his side because it was the only thing in this world which he knew without question was his own.

The thought of Carl coming across it stopped him. He didn’t doubt that the old him would have spoken to his son about gun safety but even still, he didn’t like the thought.

 

The restlessness continued. Most days he tried, really tried to slot into the Rick-shaped hole they’d left for him. He smiled and played with his son, had coffee with Lori and helped her in the garden or around the house, had a beer with Shane and listened to the gossip and messages from the station.

It was almost easy sometimes, he’d laugh at something Shane said and slap him on the shoulder in a way he knew was instinctive or he’d ruffle Carl's hair just to watch him squirm and glow, rolling his eyes and trying to stop the smile.

But most of the time it felt like a farce, a strange disjoint from the rest of the world. Every time he couldn’t think of something, the name of a food or an appliance, they would look at him, surprised or confused and he felt like a stranger again, speaking a learned language he’d never had a chance to practice.

It made him edgy, the way they’d look at him sometimes. They scrutinised everything he did and said as though looking for the man he used to be. It made him overwhelmingly aware that he was falling short, failing to live up to his own hype and it was torture to endure.

Some nights he wandered the house and opened the cabinet in the main hall with care, the click of the lock releasing sounding deafening in the still night.

He’d sit with the revolver in his hands, his fingers trailing over the metal like he was caressing a lover and he took comfort in the familiarity of the gun. He didn’t understand why this was the only thing that rang true to him. His son, a gun and police procedure the only thing that remained in his mind.

Once, just once, when the sad look of disappointment in Lori’s eyes when he’d moved away from her outreached hand weighed him down too much, he raised the barrel to his head, pressed it close to the skin. The metal was cold to the touch but warmed quickly with the warmth of his body. He imagined pulling the trigger, the brief moment of resistance before his finger descended and the future rushing forward with the same dark blankness of his past.

He lowered it and ran his fingers carefully over the barrel, engaging the safety and looked out the window into the dark night sitting with it cupped in his hands.

 

Two months after returning home he’d made his way into the master bedroom. He’d been over it before, could have catalogued the knick knacks and photos that covered the surfaces and the clothes that rested together in the drawers and wardrobe.

Lori kept insisting he sleep in there, that the familiar space would be a comfort to him when he slept. Each time he said no, she’d look a little more hurt, like the wound had gone a little deeper. He hated seeing her like that, her large, expressive eyes sad and her kind mouth tremble before she set her jaw and smiled reassuringly at him, extending an elegant hand to hold his arm or run her fingers through his hair.

He couldn’t begrudge her the contact, though it felt too intimate to him. She saw her husband when she looked at him, the man she loved and had been with for years. He could allow her the small comfort she got from touching him.

Now, his eyes strayed to the bed, a big double with expensive but worn sheets and matching pillow cases.

He’d slept in that bed for years, beside the same woman. He’d kissed her in that bed, made love to her, maybe argued, discussed important things in the quiet night.

There was a knot in his stomach and the feeling in his blood that he was forgetting something. But he knew what was missing, could almost trace the shape of it, but he just couldn’t quite get there.

He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands, pushing his palms into his eyes until lights sparked and flared against the dark, and just breathed. There was a powdery scent to the room, floral and soap which he associated with Lori because of the way it clung to her hair when she hugged him.

Sitting up he looked at the bedside table and picked up the paperback for something to do. He stared at the cover before flicking through some of the pages. It was dog eared and he scanned the words absently as he tried to place the story.

He heard the front door open and close, heavy booted footsteps and the cheerful call of Shane announcing his presence.

He didn’t answer, just kept his eyes trained on the page and his feet firmly planted on the soft cream carpet under his boots.

“Hey man.” Rick glanced up, taking in the tousled dark hair, the broad, olive face and the bright, beaming smile of the other man.

“You read this?” Rick asked, waving the paperback to show the cover.

“Doubt it.” Shane slumped against the doorway, filling the space and Rick looked back down at the book.

“It’s dog eared.” He ran his thumb along the side so the off-white pages fanned out. “I can keep reading from the exact page I left off.” He looked up and met Shane’s brown eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck’s happened, but I can keep on reading.”

“Start again, it’s just a dumb book man.” Rick shook his head.

“It’s my fucking life.” He cast a critical eye around the room, his thumb fanning through the pages in rhythmic waves. “I don’t know you, I don’t know this damn house. All I know is I’ve got a bullet in my side and a wrist tag that says I’m Rick Grimes and my blood type's A positive.”

“They said it might come back.”

“There’s nothing to come back man. I look, I dig around in my memories and there’s nothing there.”

“Give it time.” Rick set the book back on the bedside table, angling it how he thought it had been when he’d found it.

“And in the meantime? Keep living with a wife I don’t remember? Breaking her heart every time she says something and I don’t fucking get it?” He looked around the room. “I am living in this man’s shadow. Everything I say or do ain’t right, and you all look at me like I’m a fucking imposter,” he licked his lips, “and I feel like one.” Shane stepped into the room.

“Give it time man, it’ll come back.” Rick grit his teeth as he stood up and looked around the room full of the personal effects that should mean something to him

“If it was so damn great, why’d I forget it?” Shane paused, his mouth falling open a little and his eyes growing wide before he could catch himself. He tried for a smile.

“You didn’t have a choice brother.” He said, running his hands through his thick dark hair and shrugging his broad shoulders before settling his hands on his hips, feet planted and looking at Rick. “Look, maybe if you stayed at my place for a while? It might be a little less… overwhelming.” Rick shrugged.

“Maybe.”

There was the sound of Lori and Carl entering the house and heading into the kitchen. Rick looked out the window to the suburban scene, neat houses and tidy lawns in the bright afternoon sunshine.

After a moment's silence Shane cleared his throat and spoke, his voice low, “Look, let me bring it up with Lori.”

Rick huffed a laugh and watched a kid on a skateboard disappear down the road. “Yeah, sure man.”

 

Tension was never something felt by just one person. It was a physical thing that couldn’t be seen or heard, just felt. A thick, heavy thing which weighed everyone down. It made the conversation which drifted around the dining table seem hollow and strained even though it flowed freely, a natural exchange of words between this small family whose members were comfortable with each other.

The unnamed and unacknowledged tension was only revealed in the darting of eyes, Shane looking towards Rick and speaking loudly to fill in the spaces he left. Carl focusing on his meal and Lori glancing at everyone, attentive and helpful.

It made the food in Rick’s mouth thick and hard to chew. He picked at it, moving his food around his plate carefully.

“Rick, is it alright honey?” He looked up to Lori leaning close, her soft eyes concerned as she darted a look at his meal. He curled his lips and nodded.

“Course.” He raised a forkful and chewed. She watched him with a small smile and they continued their meal. Rick felt the looks she kept darting in his direction, and gritted his teeth when she leant close again.

“Is it warm enough? I can give it a quick blast in the microwave-”

“It’s fine, really.”

“Nonsense, it’s no problem-”

“It’s fine.” Carl and Shane had stilled, Carl’s attention riveted to his plate and Shane watching them carefully as he chewed slowly. Lori shifted in her seat, long fingers knotting in her napkin as she turned her attention fully to Rick.

“Do you need help cutting that? If your side’s hurting you-”

“Goddamnit I know how to eat!” His fist came down onto the tabletop with a bang that rattled his plate and cutlery. Lori jerked back, eyes wide and mouth open.

Rick opened his hand slowly and laid it palm down on the table, pressing each individual finger onto the tabletop methodically as he measured his breaths.

He didn’t want to look at her. The silence of the room was deafening and he knew it’d break his heart to see the looks on their faces.

He was breaking her heart. Every time he moved away or couldn’t remember something he broke her heart all over again and now, he knew in his gut there would be fear in her expression too.

He looked up, catching Shane’s eyes across the table. They were dark and concerned and Rick felt bile thick in his throat.

“I’m sorry Lori.” He spoke lowly, making himself look at her. “Excuse me.” He pushed his chair back and moved away from the table and out the back door.

 

He watched the last lingering rays of the sun set and listened to the neighbourhood settling in for the night. He heard them finish dinner as he watched the night sky grow darker and the metal grey clouds swirl around the dark sky.

He expected Shane to be the one to come out and find him but when the back door clicked open and he glanced back he saw the gentle curls of Lori haloed by the inside lights.

She was lovely, backlit by the golden light and Rick wished he loved her, he could understand why the old him had. She obviously loved him, a devoted wife who had a wide open heart.

“I’m sorry.” She said when the door clicked shut behind her. Rick turned to face her fully.

“No, don’t be.” He sighed, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Lori. I don’t…” Lori came close, her wide eyes sparkling in the half light of the backyard.

“It’ll get better.” Her hands shook when they landed on Rick’s arms, her head tilted up to him, open and hopeful. “You’ll see, it’ll get better.” She leant her head against his chest and Rick enclosed her in his arms as she curled up against him.

It was strange to hold her like this, a natural embrace he could imagine them falling into regularly. Her soft hair brushed against his face when he leant forward, nuzzling into her and feeling how she melted in response.

Holding her thin frame close to him he looked up at the sky and studied the colours there.

 

He slept beside her in the master bedroom that night. The hours crept by and he watched the shadows in the soft, muted room shift and change as time passed. He drifted in and out of sleep and every time Lori shifted in her sleep, he stirred.

Digging through his memories was hard, it never got easier. It wasn’t black, wasn’t a physical thing like a wall which blocked him from his past. It was just an absence, like there was never anything there to begin with and he was just looking into nothingness.

It hurt to hunt, to look so far deep into himself and find nothing. Occasionally he could almost believe there was something there, a shadow in the corner of his mind’s eye, a flicker of something more than the nothingness he drowned in.

When he dreamt, there were things that could have been memories but had no traction, nothing he could cling to and say was real and they slipped from his mind even before he woke. There was no substance to his dreams, no faces, names or locations just a feeling like he should know what this was.

He dreamt most of what he thought was the shooting, hot sun, hard dirt, fire and ice spreading through his veins and his lungs collapsing. He woke up gasping, the tender wound in his side aching and on fire like it was freshly formed. Panic made his blood buzz and he couldn’t help but wonder, of all the memories he could have kept, why did it have to be that one.

 

He slipped out of the bed and down the hall to the kitchen when the dawn birds started and the sky had lightened to a deep, rich blue of predawn.

Lori smiled warmly at him two hours later when she came into the kitchen, freshly showered. They ate breakfast together as a family and Rick cleared up as Lori and Carl prepared for the drive to school.

Carl stood in the door of the kitchen and watched as Rick looked for where to put the clean dishes.

“You okay dad?” Rick turned and looked at his son.

Moving towards one of the dining chairs he sunk into it and gestured for Carl to approach him. When he did, he drew the boy in close.

“I will be, it’s hard.” He admitted, “You know I love you right?” Carl nodded again, “I may not be who I used to be, I may not remember anything but I know I love you.” Carl nodded again and allowed himself to be pulled into Rick’s arms.

Rick held him tightly, feeling how Carl clung to his shirt and nuzzled close.

When Carl pulled away Rick saw Lori in the shadowed hallway watching them with a soft smile on her face and her arms wrapped around herself.

Rick ruffled Carl’s hair and nudged him towards Lori. Carl hesitated, his wide blue eyes lingering on Rick before he bobbed his head and followed Lori out the house to the car.

He made his way to the cabinet in the hall like he had the previous day, took the key from his pocket and held the revolver in his hand. It was easy to remove it and the box of ammo and close the cabinet behind him, replacing the key where he’d found it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to my wonderful beta Ijustwantedutoneedme :D
> 
> This is where it starts to pick up guys! Hope you all enjoy!

He’d been on the road a month before he bought a clunky old pick-up truck with rust stains and a tired paint job.

He’d bought it from a farmer who had given him a ride from Ashlyn to Macon. The farmer had been a crotchety old man with a ruddy red face and a stern expression seemingly engraved into his tough skin.

He’d picked Rick up from the side of the road, driven him to his home just outside Macon and given him a stall in his barn to sleep in that night as it stormed.

Rick had spent the night watching the storm through the open barn doors, skin chilled as the wind wrapped itself around him, pressed in under the worn fabric of his clothes, ran through his wild curls and crawled down his spine. The thunder crashed through him, enough to feel like deafness. It was beautiful, the sky alight, the world under siege. It was unlike anything else he’d witnessed since he woke up and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.

The debris of the storm littered the land in the morning and Rick had stared out from the bathroom window when the farmer had let him shower and shave the next morning.

There was a stillness that bookended storms Rick noticed, all the more remarkable for the chaos of the event.

He’d bought the truck for a hundred dollars, accepted the lunch the farmer’s wife had made for him and drove out, back onto the road and the unreachable horizon.

Rick adjusted well to driving on his own. He’d hitchhiked and walked for the month since he left the small house in Kings County but it was different to be behind the wheel of a car and point it wherever impulse drove him.

He slept in the car the first night, stretched out over the bench seat, looking at the marks on the ceiling. The padding was stained and torn in places and it looked like constellations. He imagined the patterns had histories, and spent the long hours making up names for them.

The second night he stretched out on the flatbed, shoved whatever was left under the tarp to one side and used his bag as a pillow.

The night air was hot and still, the stars bright in the clear sky and there was no sound beside the night insects which buzzed and hummed dully in the humid air.

He slept until the horizon began to glow with predawn colours, waking with a jerk of remembered pain and gunfire.

He headed away from the dawn, picking a road at random and continuing down it.

When he grew hungry and the sun was hot and high in the sky he ate at one of the truck stops along the road, seated along the counter and eating in silent companionship with the other road weary patrons.

The tired waitress returned his change when he was finished and he smiled kindly at her before heading out into the thick heat of the midday. He left her a generous tip, though he flipped through the money he had every couple of days, all too aware that it wouldn't last forever.

He had walked into the local branch of his bank in Kings County, smiling broadly at the cashier as he withdrew a substantial amount to see him through.

It wasn’t breaking any laws but it still made him edgy, and he’d had to stop himself from darting a nervous look at anyone who entered the bank.

The wad of notes was still substantial, supplemented with money he earned through odd jobs he picked up along the way, always paid in cash under the counter. It might have been paranoia, but he wanted to leave his name in as few places as possible.

He knew Shane would be looking for him and using every resource available to him to find his wayward, amnesic partner. So Rick spent his money carefully, stretching it as far as he could so there was no trail to follow.

 

The open window didn’t offer much reprieve from the heat of the day as he drove along. He could taste road dust on his tongue, metallic and dry and he enjoyed the way the wind combed through his hair and filled the silence of the cab as the miles rushed past under the wheels of his car.

Late in the day, when the bright sun angled into his eyes and he felt exhaustion clawing at him, he decided to rent a room in the first motel he found along the road and enjoy a shower and a soft bed, maybe even some AC.

He squinted against the sunlight and slowed down.

There was a shape on the side of the road, the low angles of a motorbike and the curled shape of a man beside it.

The metal of the bike gleamed in the sunlight and made the matte black of the body seem dangerous somehow, a gleaming beast made of shadows.

The broad width of the man’s shoulders and the worn black leather of the vest suggested man and bike were alike.

Rick slowed to a stop as he approached and sat in the cab for a moment as he assessed the man on the side of the road. His hands were entwined with the internal workings of the bike but he tilted his head towards Rick’s truck when it came to a stop a few feet away on the gravel roadside.

The car door creaked when Rick opened it, holding the roof to lever himself out Rick paused to settle the heavy weight of his python at the base of his spine and to look in either direction down the long expanse of empty road.

When he rounded the front of the car the other man was standing. He angled himself to the side like he was making himself a smaller target and readying to fight if need be.

Rick observed the subtle way he shifted on the balls of his worn boots, a barely there motion of shifting weight which belied how dangerous he could be.

He looked rough, worn denim and leather and exposed arms roped with muscles. The curved figure of his bike looked like it belonged to its owner, a little mean looking but drew the eye.

“You alright?” The guy lifted his chin in a nod, mouth small and tight as his sharp narrow eyes assessed Rick.

“Yeah,” he said in a low rumble, “she just busted up on me.” He wiped his hands on a piece of cloth he’d pulled from his back pocket. He worked at a smudge of grease without seeming to realise he was doing it.

He didn’t once take his eyes off of Rick, head ducked a little and his body angled to fight. There was a coiled tension to him which Rick found hard to look away from, a magnetism in the sense of something a little wild in the other man.

“I can give you a ride into the next town-”

“I ain’t leaving my bike here.”

Rick shrugged, “If you can get it into the bed I’ll take it too.”

The guy shifted his attention beyond Rick and focused on the bed of the truck. His eyes narrowed, assessing, before they shifted to the horizon and the way the sun was sinking low in the sky and the shadows were starting to lengthen.

He nodded to Rick and circled around him, keeping his front to Rick as he made his way towards the bed and lifted the tarp Rick hadn’t bothered looking under.

The man grunted a noise of satisfaction and braced himself to pull a length of wood from the truck.

Rick watched as he kicked at the ground some distance away, gouging at the ground with the heel of his boot before placing one end of the plank in the hole he’d made. He tested the other end, nudging it so it sat snugly above the bumper and made a ramp.

He knocked it again and seemed satisfied with his job before turning to Rick, his expression challenging.

“Guess I’m giving you a ride. You need a hand?”

 

The sun had barely shifted in the sky by the time they took off. Rick settled into the worn vinyl seats that smelt like dirt and sweat with a passenger at his side.

“My name's Rick by the way.” Rick said to the road in front of him. He heard the shifting of denim and leather on old vinyl.

“Daryl.” Rick nodded to show he’d heard.

After a few miles his passenger spoke.

“This is a fucking shit car man.” Rick huffed an unexpected laugh and glanced at his passenger.

“I know, I bought it for a hundred bucks two days ago.” Daryl snorted.

“Waste of money.” Rick shrugged, leaning his head back against the headrest wearily.

“Needed a car.” His passenger huffed a breath and shook his head before slouching down and resting a booted foot up on the dash, settling in.

 

A mile passed before the passenger spoke again, he sniffed and scratched at his face. Clearing his throat, he spoke without looking at Rick.

“I ain’t got a lot of money. That rattle in your engine’s one of your hoses. I can fix it as thanks.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Rick said, eyes on the road. “If I ever knew how to fix a car I don’t now.” He couldn’t help the way the words twisted bitterly in his mouth.

The nagging thought that he should know this, simple, everyday things that just slipped through. It was better now that he was away and wasn’t surrounded by it all but it still grated on him, all the little things he didn’t know, or didn’t know if he ever had.

“You forgot how to fix a car?” Rick waved that away with a flap of his hand.

“Forgot a lot of things.” The guy shifted in his seat to look at him.

“What, like amnesia?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“How’d that happen?” The guy's gaze slipped back out the window to watch Rick make a turn with the absent-minded attention of someone who’d spent a lot of time on the roads.

“Incident at work.” Daryl’s sharp narrow eyes flicked to Rick, his attention darting to every detail he could see like he could figure it out if he gave it enough thought. “I was a cop.” Rick supplied. The guy let out a whistle and scuffed his boot against the dash.

“Musta been one hell of an incident.”

“So they tell me.”

 

Rick pulled into a motel as the street lights turned on, sending pools of orange light spilling across the roads.

They backed the truck into the carpark and he helped to unload Daryl’s bike carefully into a space of its own.

Rick watched Daryl fuss with the gleaming beast from the small office as he checked in.

He’d grown familiar with these places in the month he’d been on the road, occasionally he got a bed for the night in exchange for labour and once or twice, before he’d bought the car and he’d been miles from anywhere, he'd made his bed under the stars. He liked these small, dim motels that existed in the not-quite places in society. They were inhabited by in-between people, people and families in a transient moment in their lives.

Emerging from the office with key in hand he watched as Daryl rose from his crouch beside his bike and watched him approach.

“I’ll look at it tomorrow, wait for the light.” He nodded towards the truck. Rick waved it away.

“I’m in no hurry.” Daryl nodded, pulling the rag from his back pocket and rubbed at his fingers as he shifted awkwardly. Rick nodded once more for something to do and gestured vaguely to his room as explanation when he moved off.

 

Rick’d deny later that he watched the other man through the window of his motel room, flimsy, threadbare curtain pushed back just enough to watch as the other man fiddled with his bike for a little longer.

Daryl stood, brushing his hands off on his jeans and looked towards the road before looking up towards the sky. He stood like that for an endless moment, gilded in the harsh sodium orange of the streetlight and kissed by the night shadows.

Eventually he moved towards the office and Rick let the curtain fall, sat on the edge of the bed and looked around the dated room.

 

Daryl was already outside when Rick emerged in the morning, wet hair curling against the shirt of his collar and his soft cotton shirt clinging to his damp skin as he squinted against the bright morning sunlight.

Daryl nodded a greeting and moved from his position beside his bike to the front of the truck and waited for Rick’s nod before he lifted the bonnet and set to work, his eyebrows raising as he took a look at the inside of the car.

Rick watched him absently, propping himself up against the wall. Daryl looked relaxed hunched over the open truck, his attention on his hands.

Rick found his eye straying down the long line of his legs hidden under worn and torn jeans. Daryl looked like a hundred other wandering men, roughened by the road, drink and violence but there was something about him which made eyes linger and the hindbrain sit up and notice the predator the other man hid so well.

Rick scuffed the heel of his boot against the concrete and squinted into the sun.

“Where are you going?” Daryl glanced up from where he was hunched, cigarette hanging from his lips at a jaunty angle and squinted at Rick

“Anywhere.” He pulled the cigarette from his lips and blew out a stream of smoke as he straightened up, resting his hip against the grill of the car. “Just want to get the hell out of Georgia.”

“You running from something?” Daryl looked at the cigarette in his hand before slanting his eyes up at Rick.

“Aren’t we all?” He turned his attention back to the car and Rick let his eyes linger as he basked in the early sun, his head lolled back against the brick wall and listened to the sounds of the cars passing on the highway and the rumble of the radio coming from the office.

 

Daryl finished with Rick’s truck and moved back onto his bike. Rick remained where he’d taken a seat, happy to let time pass, absently watching the deceptively delicate work done by calloused hands.

They didn’t talk much beyond the occasional question Rick tossed out for Daryl to answer if he wanted. There was a fifty-fifty chance he’d answer or ignore him but Rick found he didn’t mind. There didn’t seem to by a rhyme or reason to what he’d answer or ignore and that made being ignored a little easier somehow.

Rick found himself dozing in the warm sunshine, sprawled comfortably on the ground. His nights were so often consumed by wondering. The same unanswered questions about who he used to be stole the sleep away as he sifted through the puzzle pieces he’d been given and had found, trying to see how they slotted together.

He often wondered if the old him ever had trouble sleeping, if the ceiling was also imprinted into his mind from the long, seemingly endless hours he’d spent staring up at it, like they were for him.

He liked to think he had always lain awake at night, that it wasn’t just another symptom of his damaged mind and that maybe, in the late hours, he was closer to who he used to be than at any other time.

Daryl broke him from his doze with the scuff of a boot. Rick’s eyes opened and zeroed in on Daryl who had risen from beside his bike and was studying Rick’s sprawled form. When he saw Rick’s attention trained on him he ducked his chin into his chest and let his eyes skitter away.

“All done?” Rick said into the quiet. Daryl nodded and Rick pulled himself up from the ground and dusted the seat of his pants off as Daryl turned to face the road.

Rick studied the other man, tracing the shape of him, wide, slouched shoulders tapering down into his thin, snake-like waist.

He wondered absently what the old Rick would think of him. If he’d admire the shape of the other man and the way his exposed muscles shifted and moved under his skin.

 

They travelled in the same direction. Rick watched Daryl’s glinting black bike weave in and out of traffic, sometimes disappearing off into the distance in front or behind him.

He vanished behind him a couple of hours into the drive and didn’t reappear.

Rick ignored the twinge of sadness he felt at losing the familiar figure weaving across the road. It had been something to keep an eye out for, a purpose to the endless journey.

Since he’d left, there had been no familiar faces or landmarks. It made his memory loss a little easier to handle in a way, taking the pressure off having to remember and he could almost ignore the gaping hole in his head for whole stretches of the day. But it had been nice to spot something familiar in the wash of the new.

He stopped for lunch at a service station and ate sitting on the truck bed and squinted into the bright sun as he watched the passing traffic, eyes skitting between the cars for a deadly, moving figure.

 

The next day he pulled into a motel early, exhaustion and a buzzing under his skin clawing at him in the close space, deciding to go to a bar and have a beer instead of spending another night staring blankly at another impersonal motel room.

The bar smelt like old smoke, stale beer and sweat. His stool had a damaged leg and rocked with every shift of his body. His beer tasted weak and didn’t seem cool enough against the close heat of the room.

There was a game playing on the ancient tv in the corner and half the bar was interested but they were loud enough for a crowd twice their size.

Rick felt tired. His bones were weary, his head ached and there was the dull throb across his side, stemming from his bullet wound, shooting down the whole side of his body and wrapping around his torso in a way which made breathing feel like it wasn’t worth it.

He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his elbows on the bar top, rubbing tiredly at the stubble across his chin. The guy next to him jostled him as he made an enthusiastic point to his buddy and Rick rode out the motion, too weary to even acknowledge it.

There was the familiar buzz under his skin which had bothered him since he woke up, the low frequency that seemed to promise violence. He ignored it, ignored how it flared up and died back down when his agitation at the bar and the other men rose. He gritted his teeth and flexed his fingers around his glass of weak beer and focused on breathing through it all.

He met his own eyes in the smeared mirror over the bar and for a moment, was surprised by what he saw.

When he’d woken up he was clean shaven, his hair had been neatly trimmed. He’d been sunken from illness and pale from his time indoors, but neat, well put together and he could believe that man belonged in the neat suburban house Lori and Carl called home.

This man was road rough, hair curling around the collar of his soft, beaten shirt and a dark slash of stubble coming in thick across his throat and jaw. The same eyes stared back at him, but they weren't soft from drugs and illness, now they were focused.

His attention drifted along the mirror, taking in the faces of the other men unobtrusively. It wasn’t a pretty crowd, some of the women that darted through the mix would have once been beautiful but a hard life had worn down the soft edges and they came across as rough and coarse because that was the only way to survive in places like this. Some had the wary, sharp eyed look of people that had been broken a little too much, but they moved through the crowd like it was water and Rick found himself almost envying them for a moment for knowing exactly where they belonged and how to act.

He met the eyes of another man deeper in the crowd behind him and it took him a moment to recognise the dishevelled hair and the broad stretch of his shoulders. In the end it was his posture that he recognised first, the way he held one shoulder higher than the other, his head ducked down even as his eyes were up and sharp.

Daryl nodded his head before turning away and disappearing into the crowd. Rick looked around him, trying to place the other man but he’d vanished amidst the rough crowd.

He caught a couple more glimpses of the other man as he worked his way through his beer and by the time he finished his drink and was contemplating whether he wanted to waste money on another one or not, he acknowledged that the other man held no interest in him beyond an impersonal nod.

Pushing away from the bar he moved his way through the crowd, dodging the other patrons as best he could. He knew he was in trouble when one guy, lanky and tall with a neck tattoo and a patchy beard stepped into Rick’s path and knocked into him. The guy’s beer spilling all over him and he looked up, blotchy red face going darker with anger.

Rick sighed and met his stare which just seemed to piss the guy off more.

“You got a problem fuckwit?” The room was too hot, the air too close, his head ached and now he had crap beer spilled on him. He knew logically he should back out, excuse himself and not make waves but he felt annoyed and couldn’t help how his anger spiked over such a stupid thing, his anger blended with the hot itchy buzz for _something_ under his skin and he lifted his chin in challenge.

“My problem is you getting in my way.”

“Is that fucking right?” The guy's face went mean and ugly and Rick felt his hands clenching in preparation to fight.

He took in the other guy, red faced and rangy. He was drunk and angry and looked like he could do something stupid. Shaking the haze of anger off, Rick intentionally relaxed his shoulders and shifted himself into a non-threatening position, letting his hands unclench and moved them away from his side so he wasn’t tempted to reach for the familiar weight of his Python in his waistband.

“Look, I’m sorry-” he started and the guy scoffed loudly.

“Goddamn piece of shit...” He looked like he was gearing up to let fly but he was side-tracked when a voice beside Rick cut in.

“You better be leaving bro.” Daryl appeared at Rick’s elbow, half empty bottle hanging from his fingertips and he stared the other man down with steady, narrowed eyes.

“Are you in this? No.”

“I am now, and you better be leaving.” The guy glanced at him then, initially dismissive before he took a second look at the way Daryl held himself, broad shoulders back, chin jutting forward and eyes narrowed into mean slits as his Southern Georgia drawl made his words into a rough rumble.

The guy squinted at him. “Don’t I know you?”

“Yeah. You know my brother too, Merle.” There was something about the way he said his brother's name, it was more of a sound than a name, like it had gone beyond just a moniker and had become something more dangerous, a curse word of its own.

The guy seemed to agree, his lip curled up and his eyes ran assessingly over Daryl, even as he shifted into a more passive posture, seemingly without realising it. Curling in on himself a little more as if preparing to take a hit, not give one.

“Dixon.” It sounded like a title and it took Rick a moment to realise it was Daryl’s name. It was fitting, a name so entrenched in the south it wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Daryl’s face didn’t change but his shoulders seemed to stiffen with tension.

His eyebrows rose as he looked coolley at the other man.

“Weren’t you leaving?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them watched as the man backed away, adding a swagger to his step so it didn’t look to onlookers as though he was turning tail and running. He moved just a bit too stiffly to actually be relaxed or happy with how this went.

Daryl downed the last mouthful of beer and put it on a nearby surface, his eyes trained on the door the man had disappeared through.

“Come on, we better go.” Daryl said.

“What?” Daryl cut him a look, nodding towards the back door as he gently urged Rick forward.

“He’ll be back, with friends.” Rick followed and the two of them shouldered through the crowd, pushing through the door and into the carpark outside.

The air was much like it was inside, heavy and thick and offering no reprieve as they crossed the lot without a word, walking companionably side by side, both keyed up and aware of anyone that might be approaching them.

Daryl had a wide, loping stride. Shoulders hunched and chin tucked into his chest looking as though he wasn’t paying attention to anything except for the quick, assessing glances he shot in every direction, taking in everything.

“Where’s your truck?”

“Back at my motel.” Daryl shot him a frustrated look and Rick shrugged one shoulder. “Shouldn't drink and drive.” The look shifted and Daryl’s steps faltered for a second before he regained his stride. Rick rolled his eyes. “It’s five minutes up the road.”

They make it most of the way across the large lot towards the dark patch where Daryl’s bike rested before they heard the shout behind them.

Looking towards the bike and the group of quickly approaching figures, they didn’t have to talk, they shifted as one to a larger clearing between the cars and braced themselves for the arrival.

There was no preamble, they came in running and fists flying. Rick’s vision narrowed and he felt a burning in his veins as he took some hits and avoided others. The hard impact of his fist on the solid mass of another man was exhilarating.

He could feel the crunch of cartilage under his fist when he landed a blow to one of their noses. There was the rush of air leaving him and his lungs freezing when someone got him in the solar plexus.

While he froze they took the opportunity to knock him to the ground and Rick felt road dust enter his lungs with his first shaky breath. A kick landed on his side and he rolled away from the next one they aimed at him.

He could hear the sound of Daryl and the others fighting but he didn’t have a chance to check how he was going. Before they could catch him, Rick arched his spine on the ground and pulled his Python from the back of his waistband.

His arm was steady and a strong straight line from him to the man above him. The reaction was instantaneous, he took a step back and stilled. Rick pulled himself up onto his feet, keeping his gun trained on the other man as the rest of the men noticed what was happening and stilled where they were.

Daryl moved out of arm’s reach, his eyes trained on Rick as he moved like a snake through the small group.

“Now,” Rick said into the new quiet, speaking over the sounds of the bar and their panting breaths, “we’re going to go, you’re going to go back in there and forget about this. We’re going to get on with our lives and not be stupid here.” The dust in his throat made his voice low and raw, a rumble through the night which made his throat ache vaguely.

The lanky guy from the bar raised his chin in acquiescence and moved slowly back towards the bar. The others followed and Rick watched them go, lowering his gun to his side, resting the barrel absently against his thigh as he watched their retreating forms.

When they were back at the bar he turned wary eyes towards Daryl who was watching him from beneath lowered lids, his lips curled in an expression Rick couldn’t read.

“You want a ride to your motel?” Rick smiled and tucked his gun back into his jeans.

“I’d appreciate that.” Something about that made Daryl’s lips quirk, amused and he shook his head as he turned back to his bike and led the way.

 

Rick had never ridden a motorbike before. He was fairly confident he could say that about Rick from before as well. It was a strange experience, perched on the back of the large, dark bike that gleamed in the night like liquid.

Daryl was a solid, warm weight in front of him against the rush of night air which whipped at him and stung the skin of his throat when he threw his head back and closed his eyes, feeling the world rush forward.

The roar of the powerful engine filled his ears and his fingers buzzed with the vibrations that ran through his entire body, leaving his nerves alive. It was exhilarating, his hands clenched in the loose fabric at Daryl's sides.

He got himself together enough to nudge at Daryl’s side and call into the wind when they approached his motel. His stomach swooped when they made the turn into the lot and when they stopped he took a moment to orientate himself to the still world.

Huffing a laugh, he pulled himself off the bike and ran his fingers through his hair to untangle the knots that had formed.

Daryl was watching him with a pleased curl to his lips as he lounged across the bike, long lines of his body accentuated by the curves of the bike between his spread thighs.

He couldn’t say what propelled him to ask, but his skin still buzzed from the wind and his limbs felt loose. Adrenaline from the fight and the ride made him buzz, so he licked his lips and cocked a nod towards his room.

“You wanna come in?” Daryl’s body stilled for a moment before he fluidly lifted himself up and off his bike to stand close and nodded, eyes tracking over Rick’s form as he shoved his hands in his pocket.

 

Rick let himself into the small room, moving across the threadbare carpet towards the bedside lamp which he flicked on before placing his gun on the table. The light glowed in the darkness, painting warm yellow light onto the dark furnishings and got lost in the deeper shadows of the room.

In the new light Rick cast an assessing look at the raw skin of his knuckles. They weren’t bleeding but the skin was shiny and tender.

“Quiet drinks with you always like this?” Rick looked up to Daryl at his voice and huffed a laugh.

Daryl looked wild in the glow of the lamp, half in shadows he was made up of contours and striking lines, hair tousled from the ride and him running his fingers through it. He looked uncontainable, like he should be out in the wild, covered in mud and blood and slick with sweat.

Daryl was watching him back, playing with a cut on his lip, tongue teasing at the edges of it like he couldn’t help himself.

“Only sometimes.” Rick relented, and it was Daryl’s turn to laugh.

Daryl looked away, eyes taking in the wood panelled room and worn carpet. Rick set his jaw and lifted his hand to the buttons of his beer stained shirt. It had dried on the ride home but it stuck unpleasantly to his sticky skin in the humid air.

The raw skin of his knuckles twinged as he pushed button through hole and he turned his attention to the progress of his hands. Keeping his breath measured and slow as he worked his way down his shirt, pretending he didn’t feel the heavy gaze trained on him.

When he was done he let the shirt hang open and looked at the other man.

Daryl was watching him, sharp eyes focused on Rick. When he saw he had the other man's attention there was a beat before Daryl jutted his chin forward and seemed to square himself, a dare in his gaze.

Rick met it, shrugging his shirt off his shoulders and felt a flare of victory when Daryl’s eyes fell to follow the motion of his shoulders and his tongue darted out to play with the split on his lip again.

The room was heavy and humid but Rick felt goosebumps sprout up along his skin and he fought not to cross his arms over his exposed chest, feeling suddenly self-conscious even as he enjoyed Daryl’s gaze.

Daryl moved forward and it was like they were moving through treacle, every movement seemed slowed down, and the air seemed weighty and thick around them. Though when Daryl got close, his hand make contact with the skin of Rick’s side and his touch was hot enough to burn right through him.

They moved easily into a kiss, noses bumping before they figured out how they fit together. Rick was surprised to find it strange to kiss someone his own height, it was a small crumb of his old life which snuck through but he could say with almost certainty that he’d never kissed someone the same height as him, that pressing against a broad, wide chest and the rasp of stubble against his own was _new_.

He took Daryl’s bottom lip in his, sucking it between his teeth before letting it go. Daryl’s hand moved from his side to his lower back where he held him closer. Rick’s own hands made themselves familiar with Daryl, one in the long strands of his hair and the other tracing the whipcord lean expanse of his side and back.

They pawed at each other, their kisses growing wet as they pressed close. Their breaths grew heavy and Rick grunted a breath when Daryl held the scruff of his neck and moved him how he wanted, altering the way they fit together.

Daryl huffed an amused breath when Rick reached for the buttons of his shirt and started undoing them from the bottom up, going by touch and making slow progress. They separated enough to both look down and watch his fingers work.

Rick watched his broad, calloused hands moving over the worn thin material and wondered what the old him would think of this, of picking a fight in a bar and taking a man back to his motel room. He wondered if Rick Grimes would be shocked by it, would hate his hands trailing over the tanned skin he found under the cloth, running up the hard muscle of Daryl’s abdomen.

He pushed the shirt off Daryl’s shoulders and moved his mouth close to trail wet kisses across the other man’s chest. Daryl’s hands clasped at the hair at the nape of his neck and he cursed a laugh up at the ceiling.

Rick pulled back and Daryl pulled him in for a kiss. They shifted together towards the bed. Rick let himself be nudged onto the mattress, pulling Daryl down on top of him without breaking the kiss.

They both grunted breaths out when their bodies made full contact, the weight of Daryl pressed against him and resting between his spread thighs. It felt good, it felt right and natural.

He trailed his hands over the scarred, tanned flesh of the other man, grabbed him and moved him how he wanted and felt a thrill every time Daryl did the same to him.

Daryl moved kisses down his throat, tonguing and nipping at the places that made Rick’s breath catch. When he shifted his hips down in a tight, hard grind that made Rick’s head roll back he felt Daryl’s rumbling laughter through his own chest.

He didn’t know if he’d had many partners in his old life, if he’d picked up and screwed many people and that was why this all seemed so easy, natural and fun in a way he didn’t realise he didn’t associate with near anonymous sex.

He couldn’t deny it did feel good, that it felt as natural as breathing to grip Daryl’s shoulder and roll them so he was on top, to laugh when Daryl cursed a laugh and struggled back. They wrestled together, untucking the neat sheets and gripping with confident hands until Rick found himself on his back again, smiling up to Daryl, whose lips were curled up and his eyes were sparkling.

Rick pulled him back down and he came willingly, licking into Rick’s mouth and puffing hot breaths against his cheek. Their mouths were wet and Rick found he loved the feel of it, saliva and stubble, hot breath and calloused hands moving over skin.

Daryl pulled away from the kiss, making his way down Rick’s throat and his chest, pausing above his navel to flick his tongue around it. His hand moved lower, fingers slipping in under the waistband of Rick’s jeans to tug playfully at the cloth. Rick jerked his hips, chasing contact in a way which made Daryl’s lips curl.

Daryl sucked a wet kiss into the skin below his navel and met Rick’s gaze “Is it wrong for me to fuck a man who doesn’t remember who he is?” Rick huffed a laugh.

“I know who I am, it’s everyone else I don’t remember.” Daryl’s smile broadened but he buried it in Rick’s stomach as he licked at the skin, nipping gently as he undid Rick’s jeans.

He sat up and helped pull the denim down Rick’s legs, his calloused hands running along his skin in a proprietary manner which made a shiver run down Rick’s spine. He threw the jeans across the room without looking and Rick stretched his arms over his head and let himself be looked at.

Daryl sucked his lips into his mouth as he studied Rick, running his hands down his own chest to his belt which he undid with a rattle of metal and leather. Rick watched as he undid his jeans, pulling himself out of his pants and boxers without ceremony.

Daryl jerked his dick twice before Rick lifted his gaze to look at the other man. Whatever Daryl saw on Rick’s face made him bite his lip and kneel up to pull his pants down.

Rick spread his legs and huffed a laugh into the hot night when Daryl grunted his approval. Leaning down, Daryl slotted himself between Rick’s legs and kissed him again.

They got caught up in the kiss, their bodies rocking closely together skin on skin as sweat built up in the humid room. Daryl pulled away from the kiss with a smack of their lips and stuck two fingers in his mouth.

His lips looked good stretched around his fingers and Rick bucked up against him as he watched his mouth move, building spit on his fingers.

This wasn’t pretty fucking, it didn’t belong in a porno or in some polished magazine or love story. When Daryl pushed Rick’s leg aside Rick held it back and moved himself so Daryl could reach down and nudge his ass until he found Rick’s hole.

He pushed one finger in slowly and Rick licked his lips as he made himself take it, adjusting around the digit before Daryl worked the second finger in. He moved slow but with purpose, when he felt Rick give around his fingers he worked them carefully, in and out and scissoring them when the movement became easy.

Daryl watched Rick’s face, puffing breaths with every in-stroke like he was thinking about how it would feel on his dick. Rick pulled him into a kiss, nipping at his lip, and told him to do it.

Daryl hesitated before he pulled his fingers out. At Rick’s nod he nodded back and spat into his hand a couple of times before wrapping his wet palm around his dick, slicking it as best he could.

Rick held his breath when he felt the thick head of Daryl’s dick against his hole and he forced himself to stay relaxed. He pushed in slow, it was too dry and there was the friction of skin against skin.

Daryl pulled the head out and cursed before climbing off the bed and grabbing his jeans from the floor where he’d dumped them. Rick watched as he cursed, fingers searching the crumpled pockets.

He climbed back between Rick’s legs and twisted the top off the small pot he’d found. Rick’s eyebrows rode up when he saw the pot of Vaseline and was rewarded by a flush that rose to Daryl’s cheeks.

“Shut up, my lips chap when I ride my bike.” He shrugged one broad shoulder. “It’s all I got man, it’s this or nothing and you’re too damn tight.” Rick arched back against the pillows and spread his legs in invitation.

The head of his dick pressed in better this time, the Vaseline easing the way more than the spit and Rick breathed through his nose as he felt Daryl pushing into him. He was thick and hot and Rick lifted his hips to adjust how they fit together.

It felt good, when Daryl bottomed out he moved onto his elbows and took a moment to breathe into Rick’s neck as Rick adjusted.

They started out slow, figuring out how best to move and they soon developed a rhythm that knocked the breath out of Rick’s chest with each instroke. Daryl worked hard, his face set, one hand fisted into the sheets beside Rick’s head and the other moving restlessly across Rick’s body, tweaking nipples, scratching at his skin and gripping Rick's hips tightly when Rick squeezed him tight. Rick locked his ankles behind Daryl’s back and met every thrust.

It was hard and fast, the head of the bed knocked against the wall in a way which made Rick want to laugh and the air between them was hot and humid, their bodies sweaty and sliding together, making their lips taste salty when they met.

Rick came first, cursing into the air with his hand around his dick. Daryl kept thrusting through it, pushing every ripple of pleasure out of him and pulling him into a sloppy kiss as his thrusts became clumsy and short.

Daryl came with a groan into Rick’s mouth, his body growing tense and stiff as his hips jerked with each spasm of his orgasm.

They stayed pressed close together as they caught their breaths and exchanged loose lipped kisses in the heavy air.

When Daryl pulled out, Rick groaned at the loss of him and the rush of slick that slipped out of his hole.

Daryl ran a finger over the abused skin of his ring, seemingly caught by the sight of it. He licked his lips as he dipped a finger back in and Rick watched him even as the feel of it against his oversensitive body made Rick twist and flinch.

They both caught their breath, the night noises creeping back in in the silence that settled comfortably around them. Flushed and glowing, his hair sticking up in wild spikes and sweat glistening on his skin, Daryl looked beautiful.

Daryl rolled to one side and reached down off the bed and Rick studied the lines across his back. He had caught a fleeting glimpse of the other man's scars as they wrestled but it hadn’t been the moment to really look at them.

Most were old, some fresher ones scattered across his skin but the ones on his back told the loudest story. They were old, they had the soft edges that came when the body they were on grew around them. Rick wanted to trace them, to finger along the lengths of the marks which spread across Daryl’s skin.

Daryl’s body read like a map, it had shifting textures under Rick’s fingers. Whatever Daryl’s life was like, it wasn’t an easy one and he’d gotten tough and mean and fast with his fists because of it.

Daryl looked like just another tough guy, a fighter who was a little wild on the inside, and once you looked under his shirts, the scars started telling stories of how he came to be that way.

Daryl lifted back up with a t-shirt and a packet of cigarettes. He wiped Rick off first, lingering over his stomach and inner thighs before giving himself a perfunctory wipe down, tossing it across the room and shaking a cigarette out of the carton. He offered one to Rick and shrugged when he declined.

He held the cigarette between his lips with the casualness of a long time smoker, lighting it with a flick of the lighter and puffing, hands free, as he tossed the carton and lighter on the bedside table. Rick observed him as he settled in on his side, still pressed against Rick with one leg between his with a casual intimacy.

“Shouldn’t smoke in bed.” It came out like a slogan for a campaign. Rick knew it was true but he didn’t think he had any personal experience with it.

Daryl laughed, a rumble in his chest that could have been a cough. “Don’t I know it.”

Rick sunk into the pillows, taking the weight of the other man as they both watched him smoke. It pleased Rick in a dark, quiet part of his mind that Daryl seemed inclined to stick around, letting his hand trail over Rick’s torso and leaning into Rick’s fingers when they carded through his sweaty hair and across his shoulders.

“That’s a bullet hole.” Daryl’s voice rumbled in the humid room as a finger circled the raised lines of the still slightly puffy scar tissue. His lit cigarette perched between his fingers like it was a part of him, smoke swirled up from the end and Rick found his eyes torn between watching the smoke and the progress of Daryl’s finger over the scar.

“So it is.” Rick murmured. Daryl choked out a laugh, rolled onto his back beside Rick and raised his cigarette to his lips, taking a long drag as he shook his head to himself.

“Goddamn cop hero.” He blew the smoke out in a long ribbon. “If my daddy could see me now.”

Rick rolled onto his side and studied the other man’s profile. With his hair pushed back off his face Rick could see how handsome he was. He hid it under his scowl and messy hair, made his face hard and mean and it was easy to not notice how handsome he was, fine boned and pretty in a way which probably caused him trouble when he was younger.

Daryl rolled his head on the pillow to look at him, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth as he studied Rick in turn.

“That guy in the bar, he knew you. That have something to do with this something you’re running from?” Rick asked. Daryl shook his head and focused on watching the smoke and ceiling above them.

“Not really, sort of.” His attention shifted to the filter of his cigarette, “My brother Merle…”

“The one that makes men go running at the mere mention of his name?” Daryl shot him a look.

“People know you’re a Dixon and they know they can’t take you alone. Dixons are meaner than mean.” He swallowed and squinted as he followed the curl of smoke that hovered above his head like a hazy halo. “Merle got into some trouble, didn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut and pissed off the wrong people.” He took a long drag of the cigarette and shook his head before breathing it out. “He ghosted, dunno if he’s dead or in prison or just holed up in some place with a chick. Only thing I know is I’ve got a price on my head from guys looking for him and not taking no for an answer. One Dixon’s as good as another.” He waved his hand before flicking the cigarette to knock the ash off onto the bedside table with a fluid move of his wrist. “They’re all over the damn country and I can’t run forever.”

“So your brother just left you to sort out his problem?”

“That ain’t news. He talks a big game but he only ever looks after number one.” He snorted, “Shit, he probably thought he was looking out for me by getting out of dodge.” He shifted his head on the pillow to look at Rick, eyes narrowed but his mouth soft. “So what’re you running from then?”

Rick sighed, settling down onto the mattress and thought about pulling a sheet over him now that the sweat across his skin was starting to cool down. But the night was humid and warm and he let it be.

“I ain’t running. I just needed to get away.” His eyes slid away, not focusing on anything. “I got this whole family and I don’t remember any of it. I got this wife that brought me home from this hospital, Lori. She put me in this house full of photos of me and shit I don’t remember and told me we’ve been married for fifteen years.” He shook his head at the ceiling, disbelieving all over again. “I got a thirteen-year-old son. How can it all just be gone?” He clenched his jaw, “I had to get out, they were judging every little thing I did by what the old me would have done. I had to get out.”

“I get it.” Daryl squinted at Rick, studying him. “There’s nothing? You don’t remember anything?” Rick swallowed.

“My kid, Carl. I look at him and know he’s mine, just somewhere in my gut, I know.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry I had to leave him, he would have been the only reason I stayed. He’s a good kid, doesn’t deserve any of this, doesn’t deserve a daddy that don’t even remember him. Thought maybe if I was gone it’d be like I never woke up, they could forget about me, or at least move on.” He shifted his shoulders against the mattress. “They keep saying I’m a good man, a good cop, a good husband and daddy.”

“You don’t believe them?”

“I don’t know what to believe. But some part of me, whether it’s the old me or the new, grabbed my gun first, before anything else when I left.”

Daryl’s eyes shifted to the Python on the bedside table before he turned on the bed, snubbing his cigarette out on the corner of the table and turned back around to face Rick, pulling him into a kiss which tasted like nicotine, ashes and sweat.

Rick melted into the kiss, raising a hand to thread his fingers into Daryl’s hair and hold his head as their mouths moved together.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to the wonderful Ijustwantedutoneedme who is amazing and beta'd this for me
> 
> Warnings for violence in this one, so keep that in mind.

The next morning, when dawn was just creeping over the horizon, they left the motel to eat breakfast in the diner down the road.

There were scabs on Rick’s knuckles and they were swollen and red, sparking every time he clenched his fists and the cut on Daryl’s lips looked ugly and sore.

A flush of red on Daryl’s chin wasn’t from the fight though. Something twisted in Rick’s guts to know it was stubble burn, and that he had a matching bloom of red near his navel, hidden under his worn clothes, away from prying eyes.

The mostly ate in silence. Daryl used his fingers as much as the cutlery and he had a way of hunching around his food like someone might try to grab it from him. It made Rick wonder if he’d spent time in jail.

That, in turn, made him wonder why he thought that. If he used to see a lot of men who’d spent enough time behind bars to develop the habit. Being a cop he supposed he could have.

He hated the scraps of insight that crept in, that he didn’t know how they got there. Fragments of a life it felt like he’d never had.

Daryl watched him eat absently, attention darting around the room periodically as though making sure they were safe before lingering on the way Rick’s mouth moved. Rick smiled when he licked maple syrup from his lips and saw Daryl’s lips twitch, pleased.

They were comfortable and Rick couldn’t help but wonder why. He hadn’t been this relaxed around another person since he woke up. It was easy to spend time with Daryl, they communicated without words and it was nice, and when they did talk Rick was charmed by Daryl’s dry wit and blunt personality.

“Where you headed?” Rick asked around a mouthful of egg. Daryl shrugged one shoulder.

“Whichever way looks best.” He darted a look up at Rick over his coffee mug. “You?”

Rick squinted out the window, watching the cars passing in the early morning light. The diner was quiet at this time of day, the morning rush would start soon as people began waking up and starting their days.

“I’m the same. Don’t really know where I’d wanna go.” Daryl nodded, eyes down at his plate, Rick sucked his lips into his mouth and fiddled with the fork in his hand before speaking again. “Could always head in the same direction.”

Daryl raised his eyes and studied Rick, his eyes moving over Rick’s features and he wondered if he imagined his eyes lingering on the line of his throat.

Daryl finally nodded, eyes on Ricks as he jerked his head in a nod before turning back to his meal.

When Rick slammed the door of his truck closed he slouched back into the vinyl seat and watched as Daryl crossed to his bike and slung a leg over the low body.

He started the engine when Daryl maneuvered the bike towards the road and his engine roared to life, filling the lot with the powerful rumble of the bike.

Daryl handled it like it was as easy as breathing, his body shifted and the bike followed suit, looking fluid and elegant as it pulled out onto the road, heading away from the rising sun.

Rick followed along behind him, watching Daryl weave in and out of traffic until they made it out onto a long, empty stretch of road. Then he rode in front of Rick like an escort.

It was hard not to admire the shape Daryl cut, moving through the landscape. Muscled arms hidden under leather and broad shoulders exaggerated by the cut of his jacket, strong thighs spread across the gleaming body of the motorbike.

It was strange to think about what they’d done the night before, the way they’d moved together and occupied each other's space. Daryl shifted between familiar confidence and wariness, see-sawing between the two, even in the small time they’d known each other, enough to make Rick’s head spin.

But despite that, they fit together, communicating easily even on the road. Daryl gestured ahead of him and Rick knew he was making a turn or going on ahead.

The miles bled out behind them and Rick enjoyed the silence of the empty car. It was easier knowing the low rumble he heard was with him, that in this new, wide and unfamiliar world, he had someone with him.

Clenching his fingers around the steering wheel so the scabs on his knuckles pulled unpleasantly and twisting in his seat so he felt the vague ache that came from the hits that had landed the night before, he felt alive. The last dregs of listlessness and lethargy which had clung to him since he woke up had vanished last night, pushed out by the thrill of a fight and the shared adrenaline of what they’d done together.

As the day grew late and the sun sat hot and heavy bellied in the sky and they were halfway between anywhere, on a long and abandoned stretch of empty road, Daryl signalled them to pull off onto the roadside which cut through the Georgian woods.

Daryl dismounted the bike and watched as Rick pulled to a stop some distance from the road.

Getting out of the truck and rounding the front, Rick approached Daryl, boots crunching on the dry dirt as he watched Daryl unstrap a case from the back of his bike.

"I'm gonna scare us up some food." He watched as Daryl opened the case and pulled out a crossbow. He hefted it by the strap, moving it over his head and across his back in one fluid movement that seemed as natural as lighting a cigarette.

Rick nodded, his eyes darting towards the woods, unsure. Daryl jerked his head in reply and turned on his heel crossing the roadside and disappearing into the tree line, one hand raising a cigarette to his lips and head ducking to catch the flame of his lighter.

In that moment Daryl looked outside this world, some kind of wild and reckless anti-hero that belonged in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Rick turned away and surveyed the roadside.

 

He was in the bed of the truck with a crappy paperback he’d found abandoned in a motel days ago when Daryl came back, the bodies of small squirrels fashioned on a string over his shoulder. Rick put his book aside and watched as he squatted down some distance from where they'd parked and pulled a knife off his belt to start gutting and skinning the small animals.

His hands moved fluidly, deft movements and fine detail as he worked through the task quickly.

"Where'd you learn to hunt?" Rick’s eyes strayed to the crossbow Daryl had laid beside him. Daryl shrugged, not looking up from his task.

"Gotta eat." He shot him a glance from under his fringe "I've been hunting since I was a kid."

Rick perched himself on the ledge of the bed and watched as Daryl worked his delicate, bloody job. When he was done he washed the blood from his fingers with water from a bottle and looked towards Rick as though only just realising he was still there, though Rick knew he couldn’t have moved without Daryl knowing.

He’d observed the way Daryl moved through the world, seemingly hyper aware of his surroundings at any time, and having seen the way he handled his crossbow and a knife, he knew without a doubt there was something highly skilled and dangerous about the other man.

Daryl had looked at Rick and his gun with calculated calm the night before, had eyed it on the bedside table but had made no comment or been put off by its prominent position. It said something about a man who was so comfortable around weapons. What, Rick didn’t know, but he wondered absently if he should be worried by how much he liked the trait in the other man.

They roasted the squirrels over a small fire on the roadside and it felt like they'd been doing it together their whole lives, like this was just one night out of a thousand the same, comfortable silence and shared food in the warm twilight.

After the sun had set and their meal was done, they climbed into the bed of the truck and lay on their backs in companionable silence, their attention turned to the stars above them before they each drifted to sleep.

Rick took to listening to the radio as he drove, twisting the stiff dial and moving through the static to whichever local radio had the best signal. He wasn’t particularly invested in what he listened to, it just filled the silence on the long stretches of road.

He found he liked some classic rock, some jazz, he didn’t like talk back radio and disc jockeys annoyed him.

Daryl gave him funny looks sometimes when they stopped for lunch or just because the endless black road began to get a little too much. He’d cock his head and listen to whatever was playing without saying anything.

Rick didn’t follow or understand most of the issues the disc jockeys talked about, pop culture and politics were the topics of choice and neither held much interest to him.

He asked Daryl about things occasionally, whatever he’d heard which interested him or what he felt he should take some interest in. Daryl gave a considered answer to most things, from politics to the environment to pop culture.

The first couple of times Rick asked, Daryl was almost hesitant, giving clipped answers until Rick could tease more out of him. He seemed to relax the more Rick asked, sometimes surprised by whatever had taken his interest this time but he never judged Rick for having to ask.

Rick liked listening to the other man’s opinions and thoughts, he was never expansive with his answers, didn’t seem at all interested in lively debate or rants. He said his piece and left Rick to dissect it and take in what he’d learnt.

It was a relaxing way to relearn the world.

Daryl chewed slowly as he considered Rick's latest question, brought on by the near rabid commentary about the upcoming football match in town.

The diner was small and crowded and they were seated around a small table in the middle of the room. It made Rick twitchy in a way which baffled him to have his back so exposed to the room. He suspected Daryl felt the same by the stiff line of his shoulders and the way his sharp eyes kept darting around.

Rick nudged his foot between Daryl’s and let his leg press against Daryl's splayed thighs. It wasn't much but it acted as a gentle reminder for them that there was someone else there and it seemed to be enough.

The waitress came over when they were finished, refilled Rick's coffee and asked if they wanted anything else before leaving with a bright smile. Rick smiled back as he thanked her, watching her leave.

Turning back to Daryl he saw the other man staring after her, chewing at a fingernail, deep in thought.

Rick nudged at his knee under the table and Daryl's attention snapped back to him. Daryl tilted his head towards where the woman had disappeared into the kitchen.

“That what your wife’s like?” Rick blinked in surprise at the other man and took a swallow of coffee to buy time.

He thought of Lori, long thin limbs and a delicate and graceful face, milky olive skin and bright, wide and intelligent eyes, soft spoken and kind. It's not that the waitress wasn't any of those things, it's just that Lori didn't belong in a place like this. He couldn't picture her sitting at the sticky table or eating the greasy burger Daryl had eaten. The waitress was curvy where Lori was willowy, golden where Lori was cool, bubbly where Lori was warm.

“No, Lori wouldn’t fit in a place like this.” Daryl frowned and looked at the pattern his finger was drawing in the spray of spilled salt on the table.

“She’s a housewife.” Rick offered, though he wasn’t really sure why. Daryl’s expression twitched and Rick caught a fleeting glimpse of raised brows and a meanly amused twist of his mouth.

The waitress came back with their bill and Rick smiled warmly at her as he reached for his wallet and she turned to leave.

Daryl lifted the finger he’d been running through the salt and brought it to his lips as he watched the waitress retreat.

Rick watched the way Daryl’s lips closed around the digit, absently hollowed his cheeks before pulling it out slowly. Daryl caught him looking and let the corner of his lips curl up.

Rick glanced at the waitress’ back as he pulled some notes out.

“Is she your type?” Rick wondered aloud. Daryl’s eyes darted up to meet his before trailing over his features.

“No.” he rumbled, pulled himself out of his chair and paused a moment for Rick to follow suit before leading the way out the door.

The waitress called out a goodbye as the bell jingled and Rick nodded to her before jogging to catch up with Daryl who paused briefly before veering off around the back of the building.

Rick followed, casting a curious look around. The back of the building was out of the way, a dead end at one end and no entrance from within.

Daryl paced into the lane, shoved his hands in his pockets and watched Rick cross to him. Rick observed him as he shifted on his feet, biting at his lip and hunching his shoulders.

“You should kiss me.” Daryl said eventually.

Rick’s eyebrows rose and a smile tugged at his lips. It was easier somehow, doing this at night, coming off the adrenaline of a fight and a motorbike ride, a beer or two running through his hot blood and safe in the quiet anonymity of darkness.

He stepped forward, cupped the back of the other man's neck and pulled him forward into a kiss. Daryl came willingly, melting into the contact and licking into Rick's mouth enthusiastically.

Rick grunted and pulled the other man close to him, heat rushing up through his stomach and to his cheeks. Daryl snaked a hand into Rick's hair and the other clutched into the fabric of Rick’s shirt between his shoulders, pulling him close.

All of a sudden Daryl pulled back, licking at his lips and breathing shakily. Rick took a moment to regain his equilibrium and blinked at the other man.

Daryl scuffed his feet and rubbed his palms along the thighs of his jeans. Rick watched as his throat worked as he swallowed, his head tilted down as he squared his shoulders. He thrust his hand forward at Rick before nodding to himself and turning abruptly on his heel and braced himself against the brick wall.

Rick opened his hand to the packets Daryl had handed him, a condom and a sachet of lube. He felt his throat grow hot with a blush and paused to admire the shape of the other man's body, one long unbroken curve from bowed head to braced feet.

The muscles in his biceps bunched and shifted as he re-settled his weight, his long fingers flexed against the rough brick and he rumbled down to his feet.

"Fuck me."

His shoulders heaved as he took a deep breath and his hands moved off the wall. There was the clink and rattle of his belt releasing before he lowered his pants and his hands returned to the wall.

Rick rubbed a hand over his mouth and cursed into his palm, casting a quick look around though he knew no one was nearby.

His hand strayed to his crotch to give himself a squeeze as he watched the flex of muscle in Daryl’s ass.

Daryl rested one arm against the wall, leaning his forehead against it as he spread his legs as best he could with his jeans around his thighs and braced himself.

Rick sucked his lips into his mouth and laid his hand on the exposed skin.

"Come on. Fuck me."

Daryl’s shoulders were a tense line but he pushed into Rick's hand against his ass. Rick moved forward, plastering himself along the line of Daryl's back, pressing close and holding Daryl's hips so he couldn’t shift or move like he wanted to as he felt his cock rapidly swell at the blatant display the other man was giving him.

He pulled his hips away and mouthed along Daryl's neck as he worked on the fastenings of his jeans.

“Say please.” He murmured absently as he pressed a kiss behind Daryl's ear.

“Don’t be a fucking tease man.” Daryl growled and Rick laughed, pulling himself out of his jeans and leaning back enough to tear open and roll on the condom.

Tearing the corner of the sachet of lube he squirted some onto his fingers and flicked a look up to Daryl.

He was breathing slow, deep breaths and his hand against the brick wall was clenched tightly into a fist.

Pressing his fingers against Daryl's hole he frowned at how tense the other man was.

“Relax.” He murmured and Daryl huffed but made an effort to relax his body. Rick's finger sunk in smoothly and he felt the tight clench of muscle around his finger.

He worked Daryl open slowly, taking his time until he opened easily around his fingers and the tense, ramrod straight line of Daryl's spine had eased.

He didn’t want to ask, but something about his hesitancy made Rick wonder if Daryl had done this before. He’d proved more than comfortable sleeping with a man the other night, but there was a distinct difference to how he was now, a little unsure of what to expect.

Daryl cursed him out and Rick laughed into his shoulders before squeezing the last dribble of lube out of the sachet and lining himself up with Daryl’s body, pressing in.

“Jesus you're tight.” Rick breathed through his teeth. Daryl snorted but it broke off into a breathy moan as his head rocked forward.

They started out slow, Rick rocking in tight and slow, rolling his hips until Daryl's posture relaxed and their breaths became heavy and fast.

Speeding up, Rick gripped Daryl's hips tight, his fingers slipping into the grooved hollows of his hips like they were designed to fit his hands.

Rick shifted his hold and pumped in hard and fast, making Daryl curse loudly into the hot air, readjusting his grip on the wall, his exposed muscles bunching and flexing as he moved with the motion of Rick's thrusts.

Daryl rocked himself back, bracing himself against the wall and powering back onto Rick's dick with a single-minded focus, chasing his pleasure. Rick leant back and held on as he let Daryl work himself, taking in the way his body moved and sweat glistened on his skin as he lost himself in pleasure in an entirely unselfconscious way.

"Goddamn, look at you.” It slipped from Rick’s lips in a whisper.

"Shut up." Daryl huffed, Rick laughed and rubbed his coarse stubble against the nape of Daryl’s neck. "You gonna talk or fuck me?" Daryl growled through gritted teeth.

Rick pulled him back by the hips to unbalance him, and Daryl scrambled to keep his hold on the wall. He bent Daryl forward at the waist, keeping one hand tight on his hip and laced the other through the unruly strands of Daryl’s hair to keep him still before slamming his hips forward and pushing deeper in.

Daryl let out a cry, his mouth falling open as his eyes squeezed shut. His short nails clawed at the wall and his body seemed to melt, held up by Rick's grip he let him use his body as he breathed, hot damp breaths into the quiet laneway, moans and groans slipping out on the tail end of his panted breaths.

Rick felt sweat dampening his shirt, making the thin material cling to him, sweat building behind his knees and making his jeans cling to his legs uncomfortably.

Grunts grew in Rick's throat and he held them behind his teeth as he thrust, breath huffing out of him. He pressed in tight, grinding close as one hand closed tightly over Daryl's hip. He knew it would bruise and the thought twisted in his gut, flaring hot and sharp, making his skin tingle and his breath stutter out of him in a broken growl as he came.

His hand spasmed around Daryl's dick as his nerves tingled and shook and he tried to catch his breath, rubbing his rough jaw down the back of Daryl's neck, smiling into his hair when the other man shuddered.

Rick pulled his softening dick out, closing his eyes at how it felt slipping from that tight heat.

Daryl pressed his brow into the closed fist pressed against the wall and cursed.

Rick squeezed his hand where it was still tightly fisted around Daryl’s dick and with the other hand reached between them, pushing two fingers into the wet, loose hole he'd just been in. Daryl let out a shuddery breath.

"You're a dirty fucker ain't you?" Daryl breathed. Rick huffed a laugh but Daryl wasn’t listening. His hips were twisting and jerking, his mouth open around sounds that didn’t escape his throat. He panted wetly into his arm and shivered at every shift of Rick’s fingers before his body grew still and stiff and he jerked once more into Rick's fist and groaned weakly as he came against the wall and Rick's hand.

Rick pulled his fingers out and rubbed his palm up the arch of Daryl’s spine under his shirt as his other hand stroked him through the aftershocks, skirting the edges of oversensitivity.

Rick rested his brow against Daryl’s shoulder and closed his eyes, taking in the musky smell of sex, salt, leather and dirt that was the other man as they steadied their breaths, panting into the warm afternoon and letting the sweat cool on their bodies.

“Jesus.” Daryl breathed, pressing his forehead into his palm spread on the wall and tried to catch his breath.

Rick pulled away, wiping his hand off on his jeans absently before removing the condom which he tied off and chucked to the side.

Tucking himself back into his jeans, he watched as Daryl pulled his pants back up and turned to face him, doing up his belt as he ran an assessing eye over Rick.

Daryl chewed on his lip and watched him through the mess of his fringe. Rick reached forward on impulse, Daryl's gaze heavy on him as he straightened out the front of Daryl's shirt, letting his fingers trail over the skin above the waistband of his jeans just because he could, prolonging the moment.

Rick looked up at him, flushed and loose limbed. “You do this often then?” Rick asked, “Take up with strange men and rock their worlds?” Daryl laughed, shaking his head.

“Hell no. Couple of sad fucks behind the one bar in town.” He ran his fingers down Rick’s chest and his eyes followed his fingers’ journey. “I’m livin’ la vida man. I’m gonna be dead soon, I might as well enjoy the ride.” His eyes trailed over the long line of Rick’s body and his lips curled. “And what a ride.”

Rick felt his cheeks flush and he shook his head as he laughed lowly into the hot space. He looked at the other man, taking in the liquid nature of his body and licked his lips as he smiled at him.

A hand wrapped around the back of Rick's neck and he was pulled forward into a kiss, stumbling forward a step to bump into Daryl, he let himself melt into his hard frame.

Pulling away from the kiss they shared space for a moment, breaths mingling as their bodies pressed comfortably together.

Around the front of the diner Daryl paused before straddling his bike. Rick watched him through the windshield of his car as he looked down at his bike contemplatively.

He darted a look towards where Rick’s car was sitting with its engine idling, and seemed to steel himself before he threw one long leg over the body of his bike and kicked the motor into life as he peeled away with a raised finger over his shoulder at Rick.

Rick laughed into the stuffy heat of the truck cab and smiled as he followed the bike onto the road.

Time slipped away easily on the road, days blurring together, the landscape shifting seamlessly in the frame of his windshield and the days didn’t seem to matter.

They fell into simple routines, eating together and spending time watching the world slip by when the white lines became too much to keep watching.

Daryl was soothing company, non-judgmental and blunt in everything he did. He managed to make himself at home wherever he planted himself. His spine melting into an effortless sprawl Rick found hard to look away from.

At night they slept in dingy motel rooms or on the side of the road. The warm evenings like a heavy blanket resting over their still forms as they both warred with sleep.

They rarely spoke when they lay awake at night but it was a comfort to know someone else was there, only a small distance separating them. Rick was surprised by how comforted he was to have his silent companion beside him as he stared up at the stars or water stained ceilings.

It was strange travelling with someone that wasn’t in the car with him. Daryl darted in and out of view on a whim, sometimes he would race ahead and a few miles along, Rick would pass his bike parked on the edge of the woods and the other man nowhere to be seen.

He’d continue on each time it happened, there was something about the way Daryl would stride into the woods when they stopped and had time for him to go hunting, or even just to disappear for a moment. There was a confidence in his step, an easy way he disappeared between the trees and came out with something loosened inside him which made Rick think he needed that time more than he could ever say.

Rick couldn’t resent the man for his moments alone, even in the empty car Rick was all too aware that peace was hard to come by.

Every mile they passed through was shadowed by the people that weren’t there. Daryl was dogged by a brother Rick had never met and had barely heard anything about. His influence glinted through everything Daryl did, whether he allowed it or not.

Merle was a blurred spectre that dragged him down, a burden and a curse despite how desperately Daryl loved him. And he did, Rick could see it whenever he was mentioned, the heartbreak of abandonment was too real and still stung too much for Daryl to hide.

Rick’s own silent passenger clouded every decision, every question and option open to him. The nagging questions of what would he do? This Rick that existed before, that had lived longer and loved more.

Sometimes he hated the man he used to be. It was a furious, burning hatred that when he dug right down to the heart of it, was jealousy.

Other times he missed him, this man he once was and never knew. It felt like someone he’d known and loved had disappeared leaving no trace behind, not even memories.

Neither feeling was rational, they didn’t make sense, but they flared up nonetheless. They shifted to the forefront of his mind before drifting away, leaving no impact upon the world or his understanding of it.

It was strangest when he didn’t miss him at all. When Rick suddenly realised he was doing something as natural as breathing without a single thought to the other Rick or what he might do or how he learnt it.

One day he realised he’d gone two days without remembering he’d ever forgotten anything at all. He looked up from his burger to Daryl who was talking around his mouthful about something to do with his bike tires, gesturing in small, snake fast movements of one hand as he ate contently and Rick tried to come to grips with forgetting the hole in his memory, reminding himself that he hadn’t always lived like this.

Ducking his head he ate his meal and watched Daryl lick juices from his fingers and tear his food apart before eating it.

It was easy to forget who he was and who he was meant to be when he spent the day behind the wheel of a second hand car and sitting on the side of the road with Daryl at his side.

Miles slipped out under the wheels of the car and it was like with each mile they passed through, remembering became less and less important.

In this part of the country the railroad tracks snaked alongside the road. Surrounded by sun bleached fields the road was a scar on the landscape, trees stood out against the skyline of bright powder blue. It filled the windshield of Rick's car and the empty road which stretched endlessly ahead blurred in his vision.

When Daryl wove across the road in front of him he followed him with his eyes, taking comfort in the low rumble which filled the air, echoing across the fields, the only sound that drowned out the noise was the high speed trains and the freight trains that rocketed down the tracks occasionally. Rick watched them when they came, transfixed by the flicker of carriages before his eyes, the high speed intrusion which shot across the countryside and disappeared just as quickly.

It was the quiet that made him aware of the approaching noise, it was different to a train which had a rattle to its consistency, a higher tone to the rumble which broke through the quiet.

The rumble that began behind him settled in the base of his spine before his ears fully registered what he was hearing. It was the roar of multiple engines filling the air, coming in fast and growing louder as they approached.

He watched as Daryl registered the noise ahead of him, his body growing stiff and poised atop the bike as his head moved to try and catch the noise around the roar of his own bike.

Signalling for Rick to continue on Daryl maneuvered towards the side of the road. Rick came to a rumbling stop a little further along the road, parked at a sharp angle, back wheels still on the road.

Daryl was off the bike and making his way towards Rick with hurried steps, kicking up road dust in his haste. He looked red faced and angry when Rick rounded the truck and met him on the roadside.

“Keep going.” Daryl shouted, voice going tight as he gestured towards the road as the figures of low riding bikes crested the small hill and made their way towards them.

“I ain’t leaving you.” Rick said, eyes fixed on the approaching figures and the roar of the incoming bikes.

“You ain’t a part of this. Keep going and I’ll catch up.” Rick cut him a look.

“I’m in it now. You had my back.” Daryl’s hands flew up as he choked on a laugh.

“That was some bar fight with a drunk tweaker, that ain’t what this is.”

“I can’t in good conscience leave you to face this on your own Daryl.” Daryl's face twisted into disbelief but anything he might have said was drowned out by the noise of five high powered engines rumbling to a stop in formation before the two men.

Daryl’s jaw jumped as he turned to face the new arrivals, shoulders back and proud, chin jutted and pale eyes narrowed as he stood beside Rick.

The leader took his time climbing off his bike, he was a rangy man with dark hair and eyes set deeply into his face. He ambled a few steps close and cocked his head as he looked at Daryl, his eyes darting briefly over Rick before turning back to Daryl.

“Dixon,” he greeted with a surprisingly deep voice, “you have a lot of people looking for you.”

“Wrong Dixon.” Daryl said, his voice low and tense, eyes narrowing impossibly further. The man smiled, a broad grin which showed nicotine stained teeth.

“We’ve moved beyond askin' real nice where your brother is,” he cast a glance back at the men behind him and Rick split his attention when they rose from their bikes and shifted forward, “see, we’re going to send a message to old Merle, one he’ll listen to.” Daryl scoffed, spitting off to one side as he shifted his feet on the dry dirt.

“Merle ain’t so good at receiving messages.”

“I find a body bag’s hard to ignore.” Rick felt his jaw jump as he clenched his teeth and he found himself re-settling his weight as anger burned through his limbs, making his head throb and his chest feel tight and hot as a buzz roared to life under his skin.

Daryl didn’t say anything, though his head cocked forward as he watched them through his fringe.

The man before them took that as a reply and shrugged one shoulder amiably as though he was amused and exasperated by all of this.

The men behind him stepped forward, approaching them, and the leader called over the sound of their steps and the crickets. “You should have just told us where your brother is.”

Rick had enough time to see Daryl’s lip turn up in an ugly snarl before he threw himself at the thickset man who was strutting forward.

The moment of surprise was enough for Rick to take advantage of, tackling a blond man with a sleeve tattoo and a beer belly, taking him to the ground and landing a blow to his solar plexus and his face to stun him. He was pulled off him by the back of his shirt and he used that to his advantage, twisted out of the hold, ducking to lodge his shoulder in the man's stomach with force before moving out of arm’s reach as quick as a snake.

The surprise had worn off and the bikers were regrouping. Daryl stumbled back and pressed his back against Rick’s as they each assessed the situation surrounding them. Daryl darted forward, landing a blow and came back.

It was like they’d been fighting side by side for years. They stumbled once or twice when the other moved when they weren't expecting it, but it was surprising how easy it was to keep Daryl at his back and his eyes on the threat in front of him.

Fighting was a heady mix of cold, calculated precision, judgement and animal savagery. It burned in his blood and made his vision swim between hazy fury and clear, deadly focus. The taste of blood in his mouth and the absent ache of hits he’d feel later warred with the rush of adrenaline that made his limbs shake even as he squared himself and braced like a prizefighter.

Rick misjudged the reach of one man and felt his head snap back with a sucker punch. He felt the crack of his teeth knocking together and the snap of his head flying back dizzyingly. Before he could regain his equilibrium a fist landed solidly against his stomach and he jackknifed forward with a shock of air from his lungs.

The ground rushed up to meet him and he landed heavily on his knees, scraping his palms as he stopped himself from falling further forward. He saw the kick coming just in time and dove to the side, scrambling up before the other man regained his balance and rushing forward to knock him to the ground.

Pressing one knee hard into the other man's groin he let his fists land where they could as he fended off the fists that tried to grab at him. Blood sprayed in a fan through the air when he landed a solid blow on a hard jaw as the man's head snapped back as best it could against the ground, and he stilled beneath Rick.

Standing up, he saw Daryl with an arm around his throat and his spine arched backwards far enough to make struggling difficult as the leader of the group stood before him, a switchblade in his hand as he wiped a trail of blood off his forehead and tested his jaw.

The man holding Daryl had blood running freely down his face from a broken nose and he was red faced and struggling against Daryl as he writhed as best he could in the chokehold.

Rick moved swiftly across the distance and pulled his python out of his waistband, pressing the nuzzle against the leader's skull in warning before backing off enough to let his head twist to see him, but making moving out of shot difficult.

The man stilled, his back straightening in the reflexive stilling of a predator faced with a threat.

Rick met Daryl's eyes over the man's shoulder and for a moment there was steely determination in the other man's face. Blood smeared and streaked with dirt, hair in his face as he gritted his teeth, and for a moment he was ready to watch Rick blow the man's brains out before something in his face slackened, the coldness cracked just enough for his expression to blank and he shook his head minutely, eyes trained on Rick's.

Rick paused as he took that in, for a second he thought his finger would depress on the trigger anyway. That he’d stand there on the side of the road and watch as the bullet from his gun peeled a stranger's head open and blew his brains across the road dust he was coated in.

With a shaky breath he adjusted his grip on the gun and hefted it above his shoulder to bring it down with a quick, hard swing, and watched the other man crumple at his feet.

The man holding Daryl cast a quick, nervous look at his fallen companions and shifted his hold on Daryl, his mean eyes turning to Rick as a sneer spread across his face. Rick kept his gun fixed in his hands and scuffed his boot against the ground as he frowned at the other man.

“Let Daryl go. If I see any of you again, I will kill you. You tell whoever the fuck it is, that Daryl doesn’t know where his brother is and you best not come near him again.” Daryl twisted out of the man's slackened grip, rocked forward with all his weight and headbutted the surprised man, knocking him to the ground where Dary landed a swift kick to his groin.

Rick met Daryl’s eyes over the blood splattered earth and nodded, face hard. Daryl nodded back, understanding and thanks in his expression as they gave a cautious look around them.

Raising a hand to his ribs and testing his jaw, Daryl’s eyes strayed to his bike. Rick moved without a word to the back of the truck and pulled out the plank of wood Daryl’d found, creating a ramp from ground to truck bed.

When he turned around Daryl was already wheeling his bike towards him, and together they lifted the bike into the bed and were slamming the gate closed in minutes.

In the cab of the truck Daryl sunk low in the vinyl seat as Rick pulled out onto the road, speeding along the asphalt until the carnage disappeared out the rearview mirror.

Rick looked down at his hands around the steering wheel and eased his white knuckled grip, surprised to see his hand shaking when he lifted it off the wheel.

Daryl was looking at him out of the corner of his eye but he didn’t say anything as Rick clenched his hand into a fist, despite how it made his bloody knuckles burn and his bones ache.

Beside them, a train thundered to life as it approached, the two men turned their eyes to watch the flicker of its carriages before it sped on ahead of them towards the horizon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that has left wonderful comments. I've been shit and haven't gotten around to replying but know that I love you and your comments :D
> 
> Thanks once more to the ever wonderful Ijustwantedutoneedme for beta'ing this for me and being awesome

“Fuck.” Daryl panted as he lowered himself onto Rick's dick, one hand braced on the roof of the truck's cab and the other on the window by Rick's head. His head lolled back and his mouth fell open as he sunk down, his breaths loud in the car, his broad chest heaving with each breath he took.

Rick ran his hands up the stretch of skin exposed by his unbuttoned shirt, admiring how his tanned skin and his scabbing over knuckles looked against the lines of Daryl's body, tanned and scarred, flushed with arousal and a light blooming of colour along his skin left over from the fight.

He smiled when Daryl grunted as he tweaked his nipple, pinching the flesh between his fingers to feel him shudder over him, feel it all the way through him.

Rick’s hands trailed back down to the narrow hips perched above him and gripped tight, bracing himself to snap his hips up into the tight heat of Daryl.

“Oh yeah,” Daryl panted, eyes opening to slits so he could look at Rick's face. His thin lips curled at what he saw there, his tongue darting out to linger on his lower lip.

He looked pleased with himself. Flushed red and hair sticking to his sweat, he moved with confidence, arching his back and cocking his head as though daring Rick to look away.

Rick had no intention of looking away, the fingers of one hand gripped his hip as Daryl rolled his body and rode him with confident, strong jerks of his hips.

His breath shocking out of him each time Rick snapped his hips up to meet him like it surprised him every time. Rick wanted to chase that sound, to draw it from him again and again.

Rick’s other hand trailed over Daryl's body, scratching at his quivering thighs, moving over the ladder of his abdomen and thumbing over his nipples, his calluses catching on Daryl’s skin as he traced the lines of his body.

They’d only done this a few times before and Rick couldn’t imagine it ever not surprising him.

Daryl reacted to every touch, moving into them and shuddering when it felt too good. He was unselfconscious like this in a way he wasn’t always in regular activities. He took his pleasure and let himself enjoy it. There was no wariness here, just a playful edge of fucking.

Daryl leant down, putting his weight on the arm braced beside Rick's head and licked into Rick's mouth. The kiss was sloppy, their teeth clinking and it took them a moment to lock their lips because they were rocking hard and their panting breaths made the air hot and wet between them.

There was spit on their chins and Daryl licked into Rick's mouth, rumbling a laugh when Rick caught his tongue lightly between his teeth and sucked. Daryl pulled away with a breathy groan.

“Stroke your dick.” Rick's voice was low and rough as gravel and Daryl twitched at the sound.

He looked down at Rick, leant against the driver's side door, one foot in the foot well, the other along the bench seat to give Daryl room.

Rick’s hair was damp and curling and he knew his eyes were sharply focused on every move the other man made, his lips curling away from his teeth when Daryl squeezed tight around him and his breaths were hard pants and grunts.

Daryl smiled slow as honey and narrowed his eyes at Rick. He licked his lips again, making a show of it and let his eyes wander leisurely across Rick’s body where his t-shirt was pulled up under his armpits.

“You like watching me fuck myself?” His accent was thick, a low rumble and slurred words that were as heavy as the moist air between them.

Rick huffed a laugh and gripped the sharp edge of Daryl’s hip tighter. He thrust hard, holding Daryl's body still so he had to take it.

Daryl’s head lolled back again and he laughed up at the roof of the cab.

“Grab your dick.” Rick said.

Daryl rolled his head forward, taking his hand off the window by Rick's head, moved it to his nipple and tweaked it. He made a show of it, rubbing his hand down his torso slowly, pausing every now and again when something felt good.

When he reached his dick he didn’t play around, he fisted it tightly and pulled at it in long, firm strokes.

The strokes became faster and his hips moved in quick jerky movements, no longer using the length of Rick but keeping it short and hard, rocking his hips so it hit him just right inside. His eyes squeezed shut and his breaths were almost pained pants as he chased his pleasure.

He came with a whine, his body jerking inelegantly and mouth falling open as ropes of cum splattered across his stomach and slicked his fist. He stilled, panting with his eyes closed for a few heartbeats before opening them and smiling lazily at Rick who still held his hips in a tight grip.

Daryl let out a huff of laughter, raised his cum slick hand to his mouth and sucked a finger in. He locked eyes with Rick as he worked his finger clean, panting around the digit.

Slowly, he moved his hips again, long, tight strokes that rolled through his strong body and worked Rick just how he needed it. It only took a couple of passes before Rick grunted, gripped Daryl’s hips and pounded in with short, sharp thrusts before stilling, falling limply back against the door and letting his hips spasm.

Daryl laughed again, rising up so Rick slipped out of him and threw himself back towards the passenger side door. He lounged where he landed, legs spread wide, framing his softened dick and the shadowed crevice that hid his used hole. His body glistened appealingly with sweat in the half light of the cab and Rick let his eyes linger.

“Fucken hell man. Sex always this good with you?” Daryl reached down into the footwell and pulled his jeans into his lap as he rifled through the pockets for his cigarettes.

“Could ask you the same thing.” Rick slipped the condom off and knotted it, throwing it onto the dash to get rid of later. He lifted his hips and pulled his jeans back up, tucking his dick in but not bothering to do them up yet.

There was the _woosh_ -click of a lighter and he looked over at his companion, slouched against the door and watching him through the haze of cigarette smoke with a pleased curl of his lips.

Rick pulled a bottle of water off the dash and opened it, taking a healthy swallow and letting the warm liquid drip down his throat before handing it to Daryl, who took it gratefully and finished it off.

Before they set out again Daryl pulled his pants on but left his shirt slung over his shoulder as he slouched in the passenger seat. Shifting his attention between Rick driving and the way the clouds darkened and the air seemed to grow thick, pressing close and leaving no room for breath.

 

They stopped at a motel that night as the first heavy drops of the storm began. It broke as Rick crossed from the office to where Daryl was securing the tarp over his bike in the bed of the truck.

He secured the last corner as Rick appeared at his side and together they ducked under the narrow cover supplied by the second floor walkway and made it to their room.

The rain beat down, a roar of background noise that cut them off from the rest of the world. It made the late afternoon into false twilight, darkening shadows and making the small space of the motel seem like it existed outside of time.

Rick positioned himself at the window and watched the clouds roll in and the rain come down in thick sheets. Daryl moved around the room, dumping their bags and ducking into the bathroom before he came to stand at Rick’s side, their bodies pressed close together as they watched the world get washed away.

 

Intimacy became easier. They were comfortable with closeness, it didn’t come naturally to either of them, but it became easier the longer they spent together.

Their days were spent watching each other in in their rear-view mirrors and eating together in cheap diners and on the side of the road, drinking beers with their shoulders pressed together in bars and on the bed of the truck as they stared up at the sky.

They didn’t fuck often, though that too, became easier. Most nights they’d barely touch, sharing space and taking comfort in the familiar presence beside them.

Occasionally they would hold each other in the night. Daryl had dreams that woke him at all hours and sometimes he didn't go to bed at all, he’d prowl outside or sit in the single chair by the window and doze through the night.

Rick woke often, body burning with remembered agony. Sometimes sleep eluded him entirely, his head swelled with all the things he couldn’t remember and longed to, the hundreds of things he thought he should know, should miss, should understand.  

Those nights Rick pulled Daryl close when he let him, buried his face in the back of Daryl’s neck, breathing in the smell of the other man and slotting their bodies together, locking his knees in behind Daryl’s and holding onto the other man like a lifeline.

Daryl melted into him on the nights he allowed the contact, which became more frequent as time passed.

They’d only been together for a couple of weeks but it felt like longer, the silent communication and the way they moved around each other, like planets in orbit, reliant upon the other and entirely in sync.

Rick wondered if that was how the old him had been with Lori, with Shane. It was strange to miss a comfort he’d never known but he found he did.

 

The rain stopped sometime before dawn. They checked out of the motel just after seven and drove off on the dark, wet road. The air was cool and fresh and Rick opened the windows to take in the smell and watched as Daryl wove his bike lazily through the cool morning.

It happened in a split second, between one blink and the next. Daryl’s bike sped up unexpectedly, veering to the side and with a bang the pair shot off the road and twisted in the air before landing heavily on the ground. Bouncing twice before crashing to a stop in the ditch that ran alongside the road with a deafening crash of metal.

For a moment there was only soft quiet nothing, like gunshot deafness, before the world rushed back in. He could smell burnt rubber, heard the crash of metal and the screech of his truck as he pulled to a stop. His own breath echoed in his ears as his footsteps smacked against the road as he ran to the wreck of the bike.

There was the sound of tires squealing behind him and voices but he didn’t even take a second to look back.

This was different to watching Daryl take a beating. Something about Daryl made you think no beating on earth would be bad enough to break him, but a motor accident was different, inhuman and impersonal in its destruction.

There was the shift of Daryl’s arm under the metal and Rick felt air rush out of him and he gripped at the bike. Hands joined him and he spared a second to see a thin brunette and a squat bald man nod as they took hold of the bike and helped to move it carefully away from the splayed form in the ditch.

Daryl let out a groan and began to move before the groan twisted into a strangled cry. Rick was beside his head, hands running over him as he tried to stop him from moving. Daryl’s hand came up to bat him away as he breathed through gritted teeth and attempted to move again, this time more carefully. A curse slipped through his teeth and he allowed Rick to help him shift off his front. His torso was wet and it took Rick a second to realise it wasn’t just mud.

The thin girl was kneeling beside them and Rick shifted his attention to her when she spoke.  “My daddy’s just down the road, he can fix him up.” Rick nodded and shifted his hold on Daryl to help ease him up. Daryl let out a whine as they lifted his weight and Rick clenched his teeth around a scream that seemed to rise up in his throat which he didn’t fully understand.

The girl hovered beside them before darting forward. “Put him in my car, there’s more room. Otis will bring your truck.”

“My bike.” Daryl growled and shifted his weight away from Rick as though he was going to move back for it. Rick tightened his hold and heaved him up the small ditch as the bald man reached down to steady their climb.

They made it across the road and Rick eased Daryl into the back of the four by four. Daryl tried to rise up weakly and Rick pushed him back down with a growl, climbing in and settling Daryl’s sprawled form down on top of him forcefully.

“My bike.” Daryl said again around a vehement curse.

“We’ll put the damn bike in the back of the truck.” The girl huffed as she climbed into the driver’s seat, leaning out the window to talk to the two men beside the road who nodded grimly as they sped away.

Daryl relaxed back against Rick as best he could, teeth clenched and hand fisted in Rick’s shirt as he tried to shift into a more comfortable position.

Rick lifted the hem of Daryl’s shirt and hissed at the bright, hot blood gushing out of the wound on his side with each shift of the other man's body. Grabbing the bandana Daryl habitually wore in his back pocket Rick pressed it against his side, holding it against the dark wound as though he could hold Daryl together if he tried hard enough.

Daryl panted and held himself stiff along the back seat, grunting with every shift of the car beneath him.

“Damnit woman, are you aiming for the potholes?” Daryl grumbled when he landed back against Rick as they bumped along the road. The girl laughed, a bright high noise, her eyes wide as she shot them a look over her shoulder.

“He’s a charmer ain’t he?” Rick laughed lowly.

“You have no idea.” Her expression grew pinched.

“He needs pressure on that wound.” Rick nodded and adjusted his hold so he could press down steadily on where blood was leaking out.

Daryl growled through clenched teeth and narrowed his eyes at Rick. At another bump in the road he huffed a pained breath and bared his teeth.

“If you wanted to try the kinky stuff you just had to ask.”

Rick saw the girl’s eyebrows ride up high in the rear-view mirror but she didn’t say anything. Rick shot Daryl a look but it was ignored, his eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenched tight as he measured his breaths.

They pulled off the road and turned down a long drive which they sped down for a few minutes before coming to a stop out the front of a white farm house that looked like something out of a fairy tale.

The girl jumped out, leaving the engine running as she rounded the car, calling for her father. Rick heard the screech of a screen door as the girl opened the car door and he slipped out.

Together they eased Daryl out of the car and onto his feet. Rick felt some of the horror twisting his guts ease at the savage swear words Daryl growled at them as they got him out. If he was swearing and holding himself up as best he could, he’d be alright, Rick just knew it.

Daryl staggered and attempted to walk on his own as he crossed the drive but his breathing grew short and his limbs shook with the strain and he relented, leaning heavily on Rick as he forced his hard, pained breaths to calm down with little success.

They were ushered into the neat house and moved down the polished wooden floorboards towards a bedroom off to one side.

At the sight of the bed Daryl seemed to resist, his body going stiff in Rick’s arms. Rick huffed, pushing him down roughly and held him where he fell for a moment as he made sure Daryl wasn’t going to move.

Rick backed away and let the girl’s father move into his place with a collection of supplies he placed on the bedside.

The girl was talking, explaining what had happened in a calm, quick voice. The old man nodded along and got to work, cutting Daryl out of his shirt and peeling the bandana off his side to reveal the wet, dark looking wound that split his flesh.

 

Rick had noticed that Daryl had a strange relationship with his body. He didn’t like showing his scars, didn’t like people looking at him and often tried to hide the broad width of his shoulders and the sinewy stretch of his body that spoke of strength and survival.

Other times he seemed to dare people to look, shoulders back and chin jutted he knew how to be intimidating, he seemed to silently dare people to judge him by his scars and his muscles formed from labour and hardship.

When they were in bed, most times he didn’t mind Rick touching him, didn’t seem to care or notice the marks on his skin but sometimes he was almost shy, like his scars were the only thing Rick might look at and that scared him.

Laid out on a stranger's bed, injured, he didn’t know how he wanted to look, he was in pain and annoyed. He’d jutted his chin and narrowed his eyes when the old man’s hands had hesitated, only briefly, when his scars were first revealed. Though the old man’s face hadn’t shown anything but professional concern Daryl had seemed to curl in on himself and had looked like he wanted to cover himself back up. In the end, he clenched his teeth and let the man do his work.

Rick leant close beside the bed and watched. Daryl looked at him as the old man worked and Rick wanted to reach across, to rest his hand on Daryl’s and tell him it was going to be okay but comfort like that wasn’t how either of them operated, it was so apart from the world they’d made together.

 

The old man finished stitching up the wound on Daryl’s side and moved methodically through the rest of the scrapes and cuts that littered Daryl’s body, testing each limb carefully for damage and stoically ignoring Daryl’s furious looks.

He cleaned up a scrape high on Daryl’s forehead, carefully pulling the thin strands of hair from the blood and looked sternly at Daryl’s pinched face.

“Why weren’t you wearing a helmet? Coulda taken your head clean off.” Daryl grumbled into the pillow and glared.

When the man was done he rattled out two pills from a bright orange bottle and handed them and a glass of water to Daryl, watching as he drank.

Turning away, the old man set about cleaning up the bloody cloth he’d used. Nodding Rick out of the room as he turned to leave. Rick paused, leaning close to run his fingers over Daryl’s before rising up and following the other man out.

 

The girl was in the kitchen, pouring out glasses of sweet tea. She turned with bright, concerned eyes as Rick entered and watched her father as he carried his bundle into a room off the kitchen and reappeared, crossing to the sink to wash his hands.

“Thank you sir.” Rick said, suddenly at a loss of what to do now that Daryl was cleaned up and alright.

Rick let himself be herded into a seat at the table and given a glass of sweet tea. The girl, Maggie, left at her father’s insistence after offering him a sandwich and playing the perfect little host with sharp, keen eyes that watched him curiously.

The old man introduced himself as Hershel and settled into the chair opposite Rick's. They sat in silence as they listened to the screech and bang of the door closing behind Maggie.

 

Rick found his skin itched the longer he spent in the perfectly neat home. The family was kind and accommodating, but their ordered world seemed ill fitting and uncomfortable as it wrapped around Rick. He suspected it would have once been comforting, something he could envy and aim for himself, but now he felt out of place, a blight on the polished floors, too cautious to touch anything in case he left a mark.

The road had left its imprint on him, the same imprint he’d seen on Daryl when they first met, and while he looked around the farmhouse and chatted with Hershel and his daughters, he was overly aware that he didn’t belong.

He stayed with Daryl for most of the day, slumped in the uncomfortable chair beside Daryl’s bed and watched him sleep, brow furrowed and face twisting each time he moved in his sleep. The room was kept in half darkness, the only light coming in around the closed blind making the room warm and safe feeling, like a dim hideaway from the outside world he didn’t feel like he belonged to.

The youngest daughter poked her head into the room sometime in the early evening, her wide eyes straying to Daryl’s sleeping form before Rick cleared his throat and they jerked to him, wide and surprised as a flush coloured her cheeks.

“Dinner's ready if you’d like to come out and join us.” Rick nodded and rose from the seat, letting his fingers touch briefly against Daryl's as he passed as though giving and receiving strength. A good luck charm to see him through until he could return.

The younger sister wasn’t like Maggie, she was soft edges, wide blue eyes and pale blond hair. She watched everything curiously, as though still learning the world. Maggie had a fire in her, a daring and a strength which simmered just below. She took after her daddy, Rick supposed, watching the small family and a couple of the staff around the dinner table.

His mind wandered briefly to Carl, who he took after. Whether Lori’s kind heart and trembling hands had shaped his son, or whether the old Rick had moulded him and made him a good man. He wondered if the restlessness, the buzz under his skin which frightened him could be inherited and found he wished it couldn’t.

“Do you have any children, Mr. Grimes?” Rick looked up at the other man, surprised.

“One, a son.” He looked back at the two girls moving in and out of view in the doorway, clearing away the meal. “He’s about three years younger than your youngest.” Hershel looked towards his daughter and hummed contemplatively.

“Where are you and your friend traveling to?” Rick shifted in his chair, eyes darting involuntarily to the hallway which led towards Daryl.

“Just across the state,” he finally answered, watching as Maggie flicked a tea towel at her sister, framed by the doorway, “family stuff with Daryl.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie he supposed, Daryl was doing all of this because of his brother. Looking around at the lovely farmhouse he didn’t feel inclined to expand much further than that.

“It must be hard, being away from your family. Have you been traveling long?” It felt like his whole life.

Rick looked back at the hall and felt his stomach twist. He forgot sometimes that he hadn’t always lived like this. It always made him feel strange to remember that, to think of Lori and Carl in that nice home where a family belonged, which held the marks of a happy life.

And he’d torn that apart. Willingly or otherwise he was to blame for it, he’d forgotten, in doing so, he’d destroyed years of happiness and an entire family.

It had felt like the right thing to do, and he found he couldn’t imagine what would have happened if he’d stayed, but the truth was he’d left them and their world, when he couldn’t handle it anymore.

He smiled at the other man, finishing his glass of sweet tea and nodded. “A few months now, It’s still hard.” His eyes strayed to the hall again and he stood slowly, keeping his smile warm and welcoming. “I want to check in on Daryl.” Hershel nodded kindly.

Rick felt his gaze on him until he turned down the hall and disappeared from sight.

Daryl was dozing when Rick entered, but he woke with a small jerk when the floorboards creaked under Rick as he crossed the threshold into the room. Daryl rolled his head on the pillow and looked at him, his expression soft and hazy with drugs and pain.

There was an empty bowl beside him, balanced on a fold of sheets and sitting at a dramatic angle. He was half wrapped in the sheets that were tangled around his ankles and he held them against his bare chest absently.

“How are you feeling?” Rick asked, Daryl blinked at him before shifting his shoulder in a shrug.

His face scrunched up as he shifted on the bed, settling himself so he could see Rick, moving to lift one hand over his head and aborting the movement with a clenched jaw.

"You need anything?" Rick asked, another half shrug

"You could blow me. That’d make me feel better." Heat spread up Rick’s throat and he darted a look at the hallway through the door.

"I'm not blowing you in a stranger's house."

"I blew you in a Denny’s car park." Rick knocked the door with his fingertips so it closed without catching to offer them a little privacy.

He perched on the edge of the bed and smiled at the other man who shifted carefully, testing his range of movement, his long fingers playing with the blanket as he watched Rick.

Rick smiled, “You couldn’t hold still if I blew you. You'd pull your stitches in a second. You couldn't hold still for all the trees in Georgia." Daryl shot Rick a look.

"Could." Rick's lips spread in a smile and Daryl huffed, shifting carefully, and rolled his eyes. "The hell I want all the trees in Georgia for anyway?"

Rick laughed, head thrown back as he smiled at the ceiling. He shook his head and reached over to pat the mound of Daryl’s thigh under the sheet. He rested his hand there for a moment, feeling the solid warmth of the other man, alive and okay and still strong.

Before he could lift his hand and pull away Daryl’s hand landed on his, the warm calloused palm enclosing his and their fingers interlocked. His fingers slipped between Rick’s, and Rick squeezed them gently.

He stayed with him until Daryl dozed off, drugs and exhaustion pulling him under. Rick remembered that feeling, remembered days and nights of it pulling him down and sapping whatever strength he might have had from him. He knew it wasn’t the same for Daryl, wasn't the same problems or symptoms but some part of him didn't want to stray too far in case something happened.

Rick stayed a moment more, watching Daryl’s sleeping face before pulling his hand away and picking up the balancing bowl and leaving the room, pulling the door closed softly behind him.

 

Rick insisted on sleeping on the couch, firmly but politely rebuffing Hershel’s attempts to give him one of their beds, Daryl having taken the spare. The next morning, he woke with a crick in his neck but he was well rested and felt better about not upsetting their lives even more necessary.

He ate breakfast with the family and a couple of farm hands, listening to their familiar conversation as they planned their day and went about their normal lives, as if two road rough strangers weren’t particularly remarkable in their day-to-day.

After breakfast was cleared away he sat with Hershel and eased into the day. Hershel's eyes were out the window, cup of coffee cradled in his hands when he broke the quiet.

"It must be hard, being away from your son at that age." Rick lowered his eyes to his own coffee, swirling the dark liquid absently as he nodded, humming in agreement.

Hershel sighed, "They grow up so quickly, it'd be a shame to miss it."

Rick’s eyes flicked to the window to see the older daughter, Maggie, lugging a bucket across the yard.

Carl was thirteen years old, had years behind him which had shaped him into the boy he was and the man he would become. The old Rick had been a part of that, had watched and nurtured him, had taken pride in raising him.

He might not know the man he used to be, might have doubts about his character, but he knew in the very core of him that he’d loved Carl and had been proud of him.

"Once you lose it, you can't get it back." Rick finally said into the quiet kitchen, ignoring the look Hershel levelled at him.

There was a muffled bang from down the hall followed by a curse. Rick got up, waving a hand to keep Hershel in his seat and crossed the hall to the room Daryl occupied.

Daryl was pale and swaying where he stood at the side of the bed, one hand braced on the wall as he glared down at the bedside table.

“You shouldn’t be up.” Rick scolded, Daryl shrugged.

“I need a piss and a smoke.” Rick crossed to him, slotting his arm under Daryl’s shoulder on his good side and took some of his weight, helping him across the room and into the bathroom.

Rick leant against the hallway wall and rubbed tiredly at his eyes as he waited for the rattle of the bathroom door. Straightening up at the sound, he watched as Daryl leaned heavily against the doorframe when it opened.

“Bed?” Rick asked, Daryl shook his head.

“I wanna smoke.” His jaw was set so Rick didn’t say anything, just resumed his position at his side and walked him slowly to the porch.

Daryl pulled away from his hold when they made it through the door. He crossed slowly and lowered himself to perch on the handrail tenderly. As Rick watched, the vulnerability of the other man slipped away, melting off of him and leaving him gruff and aloof once more.

Rick watched as Daryl’s eyes flicked to where Rick’s truck was parked, the shape of Daryl’s bike just visible from where they were. Rick glanced at it, squinting against the early sunshine.

“Shawn and Otis brought the truck back, got your bike in the back.” He shifted, looking at the other man. “I’m sorry man, it don’t look good.”

Daryl put a cigarette between his lips, ducking his head to catch the flame from his lighter and took a couple of puffs as he looked towards the truck with narrowed eyes. Eventually he snorted, lowering his gaze to study the paper of his cigarette.

“Course Merle's bike tried to kill me.” He released a breath that could have been a laugh but didn’t have enough emotion behind it. Rick shifted, squinting into the sun and rubbed at his jaw as he cleared his throat roughly.

“You can probably fix it up again.” He slanted a look at Daryl out of the corner of his eye. He was looking down, running a thumbnail over the grain in the wooden railing which showed through the paint.

“Yeah.” Daryl finally said, releasing a breath of smoke. “But it’ll take time.”

Rick nodded wordlessly and Daryl shifted his attention to him, speaking around his cigarette and squinting up at him. Rick met his gaze, taking in how pain made his eyes hazy but was barely shown in his body. Daryl squinted, his eyes roving over Rick’s face.

“Why you looking so damn gloomy man?”

“Nothing,” Rick said, “just something Hershel said.” Daryl’s focus was unwavering and Rick shifted under it, rubbing at his stubble to try and stay the need to shift and fidget. “Made me think of Carl.”

“Your boy.” Rick nodded. He wanted to leave it at that, wanted to shrug the nagging thoughts away and forget they ever came up, forget the loss that hadn’t really struck him with its impact until then. He’d known about it, of course he had, but it was different to have someone spell it all out so easily, to strike home so brutally and entirely by accident. It hurt to be reminded of all he’d lost without even knowing.

“Everything I lost, I can’t get back. My leaving didn’t make it better for him and I hate to think my weakness is hurting him.”

“You ain’t weak.” Daryl said, shaking his head and ducking his chin. Rick gritted his teeth.

“Too weak to stay.” Daryl let out a snort and pulled his cigarette from his lips, blowing out a long stream of smoke into the clear morning air.

“So you gonna live a lie to make someone else happy?”

“Looks like I’m too selfish to do that.” Their eyes met and the air between them seemed tense and weighty. Rick could feel the air pressing against his skin like a physical thing, his chest tight and his lungs burning as though he was out of breath.

It hovered between them, shame and regret and anger at a situation that had no easy answer, that had no frame of reference they could call on to figure out a roadmap of how to act.

Any reply Daryl might have had was silenced by the screen door opening and booted steps on the porch boards. They looked towards the noise and nodded a greeting to Hershel who paused a moment before approaching.

“I’d like to check on your side Daryl. My daughter has made you something to eat on the road.” He nodded towards their car and the angled shapes of Daryl’s bike in the bed of the truck.

Daryl jutted his chin in a nod and braced himself against the railing as he carefully rose to his feet, ignoring the arm Rick hovered instinctually near him as though he might catch him if he fell. Rick trailed him like a shadow back into the house and into the kitchen.

Rick bit back a smile as Daryl purposely ignored Hershel’s subtle suggestion to move him to the bedroom. Daryl lowered himself into one of the hard backed kitchen chairs and set his jaw as he lifted his shirt to reveal his side, eyes straight ahead and focused with an angry scowl on the far wall.

Hershel worked quickly, checking the stitches and changing the dressing with efficiency and turning away to allow Daryl to resettle himself without scrutiny.

Once his shirt was back in place and Hershel had wandered away to busy himself at the counter, Daryl relaxed, his spine seemingly melting against the hard back of the chair in the effortless way he had. Rick felt himself relaxing against the wall where he’d planted himself, safe in the knowledge that Daryl was okay.

 

Rick thanked the quiet blond daughter for the lunches she’d made them. She smiled and ducked behind Hershel as she darted a quick glance at Daryl who was looking curiously into the brown paper bag.

Hershel walked them out to their car and Rick admired his smooth way of manoeuvring the proceedings in his calm, quietly authoritative way.

“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us Mr. Greene.” Hershel smiled warmly, his face crinkling with kind lines and the softness of age and history. Hershel patted him on the shoulder, his calloused hand a warm weight through the thin flannel of his shirt and Rick let himself take comfort in the gentle familiarity.

“You take care of yourselves now.” Hershel said. Rick smiled, his eyes drifting to Daryl who was already slumped as best he could in the passenger seat, his thumbnail already between his teeth as he looked down at the paper bag in his lap.

When he glanced back at the old man he was looking towards Daryl too, his eyes soft with an expression Rick couldn’t place.

Nodding once more Rick crossed towards the car, knocking his knuckles absently against the bonnet as he passed. Daryl’s eyes shot up and focused on him at the noise and followed him as he opened to driver’s door and levered himself in.

They waved to Hershel and his youngest daughter as Rick pulled away and navigated their way down the long, dusty drive.

Daryl drifted off not long into the drive, rocked to sleep by the gentle movements of the car and the sound of the road passing under the wheels, audible under the rush of the wind coming in through the open window.

Rick cruised along, relaxed back against the worn vinyl seat which was now so familiar. When the road was straight and the distance stretched between him and the horizon without another car in sight he let his attention shift to his passenger. His face slack with sleep, stealing the hard years from his face. Rick found it hard to look away, the lines of his face were unusual, not classically handsome but arresting.

Shaking his head, he rubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed into the hot air. Squinting into the sunshine he tried to empty his mind. He’d been scared when he saw Daryl go off that road, he hadn’t comprehended how much when it happened, panic and a cool, calm disconnect had taken over.

The disconnect hadn’t really lifted until he’d been staring up at the strange ceiling, rooms away from the other man and had ached to check on him just one more time, just to make sure he was really okay.

He wondered if it was like that for Shane when Rick had been shot. If it had been worst because of the years between them, the friendship and brotherhood. Whether Shane had died a little inside that day only to die again when Rick woke up wrong.

Seeing the bike fly through the air – unreal seeming, like it couldn't actually be happening – had filled Rick with such dread, such bone chilling fear he thought he wouldn’t ever warm his core again.

Glancing back at Daryl he shifted his grip on the wheel and stretched his neck, feeling the pull of tired muscles and the stretch all the way down his back. He watched the road disappear under the front wheels of the car and let the fear which had gripped him fade away behind him, slipping out the back window and left behind.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, beta'd by the ever charming Ijustwantutoneedme  
> She is aaaawesome
> 
> Enjoy!

After leaving the farm they holed up in a motel off the highway for a couple of days. Daryl lay flat on his back and stared up at the ceiling as though seeing something that wasn’t there, dozing off under the pain meds Hershel had pressed into his hand as they left.

Rick moved restlessly around the room as he slept, flicking through the static and blurred channels on mute or sitting in the hard armchair beside the window, watching the highway and the cracked pavement of the parking lot. They ate from takeaway containers Rick brought back from the diner down the road.

They didn’t talk much, the silence between them comforting and familiar even as it stretched on longer than it usually would.

On the fourth day, Daryl pulled himself out of the bed, staggered to the bathroom and closed the door firmly behind him. Rick sat in the armchair and watched the figures in the car parked in the cracked lot as they argued in the front seats. They were little more than dark shadows but they moved with the fast, rapid movements of the passionate.

When Daryl emerged from the bathroom Rick looked up and watched as he crossed purposely to his bag and dug out a change of clothes, pulling them on with little regard to the fresh bandage on his side. As he did up his shirt buttons he looked towards Rick.

“Come on, I’m going fucking crazy in here.” Rick rose without a word, collecting his possessions from where they had been scattered around the room and followed Daryl out of the door. He didn’t comment on the pain pills Daryl left on the bedside table, the shapes of small white pills distinguishable in the orange bottle. He closed the door on them and nodded Daryl towards the truck as he went to the office to check out.

Daryl drove with one arm out the window, fingers drumming absently on the roof of the car. There was no sign that he had been in an accident just days before. And if Rick hadn’t spent most of those days picking Daryl’s blood out from under his nails he would think the occasional shifting Daryl did was natural, not the only concession he gave to his injuries hidden under his clothes.

They talked about nothing, conversation drifting between them easily and Rick felt the last tendrils of fear leaving him as he relaxed back into the passenger seat, slumped against the door so he could watch the road ahead as well as Daryl’s profile.

In the late afternoon, they pulled into a gas station, both stepping out to stretch their legs. Rick left Daryl to pump the gas and ambled into the station, taking a deep breath ~~in~~ at the shock of cold air conditioning that hit him, raising goosebumps on his flesh. 

He wandered the aisles of the truck stop while Daryl was at the pump. He watched him absently through the large windows as he disconnected the hose and crossed the tarmac to the glass doors. The bright fluorescent light washed him out and showed every mark and stain on his worn flannel vest and the shadow of bruising on his deeply tanned skin.

Daryl seemed to know exactly where Rick was without having to look. He nodded to him without breaking stride and joined the queue, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. Rick met him at the counter, standing off to one side, cocking a hip against a display and observing the people wandering in and out of the station.

There was a spinning display of postcards at his elbow and he spun it slowly as his eyes scanned the mix of bright images. On impulse he picked one up, slid it over the counter and nodded when the clerk asked if he wanted a stamp. He paid with the handful of coins in his pocket, nodding his thanks when he was given his change.

Daryl leant against the counter next to him, arms crossed over his broad chest and watched with a neutral expression as Rick grabbed the pen and scribbled out a note to Carl, frowning as he remembered the address Lori and Shane had made him memorise when he first got out of the hospital.

Daryl still didn’t say anything when he slid the card into the post box before crossing the tarmac to the car without a word, his steps stiff and his shoulders tense though he wasn’t quite sure why.

Slumping low in the passenger seat he watched as Daryl took his time crossing back to the car, studying a truck decked out for hunting on the far side of the lot with narrowed eyes before sliding into the driver's seat.

He tossed a chocolate bar into Rick’s lap and opened another for himself as he started the engine and set out.

Rick frowned down at the chocolate, a corner of his mouth quirking up as he shot Daryl a glance.

“Did you steal this?” Daryl shrugged.

Rick smiled, tearing open the packet and shoving the bar into his mouth, chewing happily at the sharp, sweet candy.

 

Two days later they stopped at another anonymous diner beside the endless highway. The staff watched them now in a way they hadn’t when Rick was just a man travelling alone. Before Daryl they’d smile and chat, cocking a hip and asking him where he was headed. Did he like their town? Was he staying long?

He didn’t know if it was just the presence of two road rough men or Daryl’s special brand of surly that changed their attitudes.

Some still chatted, exchanged pleasantries and welcoming eyes, but there was something different about it now, something a little darker and fractured in their eyes when they looked at the shadow of stubble along Rick’s hard-set jaw or the scabs on his knuckles. They watched Daryl carefully, eyed the broad width of hunched shoulders and narrow eyes like he was something near feral.

Rick wasn’t sure if Daryl didn’t notice or didn’t care about the looks he earned. He ate with his hands, sucking grease and sauce from his fingers in an unselfconscious way, no pretence or flirting about it. He hunkered down into the worn vinyl seats like he’d been doing it his whole life, knees spread wide under the table, knocking against Rick’s with his feet planted wherever he wanted, whether that was between Rick’s own or up on the bench beside him as he lounged into the corner, bending his spine in a way which made Rick’s own twinge in sympathy.

He didn’t bother doing more than glance at the menus and watched without judgement as Rick pursued the options, pausing over some things when a flavour or a sensation sparked across his tongue at certain words he read.

It was a strange sort of memory, instinctual in a way he didn’t really understand. He knew he liked burgers and poached eggs but wasn’t fussed by flat cakes. Once or twice he had to mouth the words to himself to have it snap into place and he could almost picture whatever it was and other times, most times, he was halfway through the menu before he remembered about the hole in his head. It was becoming less and less the more he travelled, the same things in each place becoming familiar and welcomed now when before they’d been as foreign as everything else.

They ordered burgers and coffee and Rick nodded his thanks to the waitress who delivered their food. She darted a quick look at them before moving off, weaving through the tables with a swish of her uniform skirt.

Rick chewed on a fry as he watched the patrons, the low murmur of conversation, the occasional ring of the doorbell and a loud laugh floating above the noise briefly before fading out into the general murmur of the lunch crowd.

Daryl’s foot tapped his under the table. Rick’s attention snapped to the other man and he watched as Daryl inclined his head minutely to the door of the diner, making Rick look towards the entrance.

There was a young kid, strung out on something, sweating and twitching in the bright lights. His hand kept moving to the waistband of his pants and Rick didn't have to see the glint of metal when his shirt twisted to know what Daryl had seen.

Daryl nodded to the waitress for the cheque and reached for his wallet without glancing towards the kid. Rick darted a look between them and reached across the table to still Daryl as he fished in his wallet.

“We can’t just leave.” He kept his voice low, barely travelling the distance of the table in an attempt to not draw attention.

“Sure we can. Ain’t our business.” Rick didn’t lower his gaze and Daryl huffed, “I ain't gonna lose my life because some tweaker needs a fix.” Rick shook his head, his jaw setting and he watched as the kid seemed to shiver all over and screwed his eyes shut as he set his shoulders.

The waitress was heading their way, and Rick rose from his seat, ignoring Daryl who swore quietly behind him. The kid was pulling the gun from his waistband as Rick rose and a charge ran through the room as people noticed. Rick crossed the diner with a confident stride, leaving the sick feeling of fear in his gut behind him.

The kid pointed his gun with a shaking hand, the waitress behind the counter froze, her face growing pale and her body growing still as she registered the gun. They didn’t notice Rick until he stood between them. 

“I need you to put the gun down, son.” The kid scoffed, the gun swinging violently from the waitress to Rick, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “I know you don’t want to hurt anyone here. If you just put the gun down and let these people out it’ll be better for you.”

“I can’t do that man.” His voice was high and reedy, shaking and cracking.

“Sure you can,” Rick spoke calmly, keeping his voice level and his eyes fixed on the wide, bloodshot eyes of the kid, “the police will be on their way pretty soon. This doesn’t have to end in violence. Now, why don’t you put that gun down for me? Can you do that?” The kid stared at him for an endless moment before, finally, his head twitched in a nod. His eyes darted around the room and his hands shook. Rick smiled kindly at him. “What’s your name?”

“Kyle.”

“Well Kyle, just put that gun down there on the counter for me.” After a moment’s hesitation, Kyle put the gun on the countertop, his fingers lingering on it and Rick could see him shaking. “That’s good. Now, how about we let these people go?” Kyle’s eyes drifted around the room taking in the shocked, pale faces of the silent crowd. He shook his head, a twitch distorting the motion and his jaw clenching down on nothing.

“How about you let the families with children out?” Rick suggested, nodded his head towards where a blond woman was clutching her young son to her, her eyes wide and glittering in the artificial light. Kyle stared at her, his glassy eyes seeming to freeze on her. For a moment Rick thought he might have stopped breathing and Rick felt a cold chill settle in his bones. He shifted his stance, resetting his weight.

Finally, Kyle nodded a hard jerk of his chin and a woman behind Rick sobbed into the silence.

“Thank you, Kyle.” Rick said in a low, measured voice and looked around the still room. “They’re going to get up now, everyone else will stay still and we’ll let them leave.” His voice carried across the room like he was speaking through a megaphone.

After a moment of tension, there was the scrape of chairs and the hurried, fumbled steps and hushed voices of the three families with children as they rushed towards the door. Rick didn’t look away from Kyle, kept his eyes trained on his achingly thin body, his own strained in preparation in case he needed to reach for his own weapon.

Kyle watched the young blond mother with wide eyes. The woman flinched away from him, her grip on her son hard enough to make her knuckles white.

The ringing of the bell seemed unbearably loud in the silence. It rang in Rick’s ears even after it closed behind the last frightened parent.

Through the windows, Rick saw flashing blue and red lights. Breathing deeply, he resisted shifting and forced his body to seem calm.

“The police are here Kyle.” Kyle’s eyes snapped to him, wide and frightened. “This doesn’t have to end in violence. Nobody has to be hurt today.” Kyle’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his eyes flicking around the room once more as his fingers twitched against his gun on the counter. “Why don’t you let these people go? They’re someone’s family too.” Kyle looked like he was going to get angry and Rick threaded steel through his voice. “Kyle.” Kyle stilled, a shiver raked through his body and his eyes were wide and scared. “You need to let these people go, the police are here and this doesn’t need to end in badly.” He met Kyle’s eyes and held them. “Don’t make this end in violence.”

It was as much a threat as a warning and Kyle seemed to understand that in some instinctual way. His shoulders shook as he lifted his hand away from his gun and nodded at Rick, his shoulders hunched and his wide eyes glittering. Rick smiled. “Thank you, Kyle.”

He waited for another nod from Kyle before he shifted his gaze around the room, his eyes meeting Daryl’s for a second. Daryl met his gaze and nodded his head minutely before shifting his eyes to scan the room.

Rick remained in place, though he nodded encouragingly at the people at the tables near him and acknowledged the waitresses' teary-eyed, mouthed thanks.

Kyle looked like a shell of a human, his body crumpling in on itself, his skin pale and glistening with sweat. He shook with heavy tremors and he stared blankly at the floor, not seeming to notice the wide berth the exiting crowds left around him.

With Daryl at his back, Rick moved forward, reaching for the small gun left on the counter. Kyle didn’t move, and Rick removed the ammunition, leaving it in a pile next to the gun which he placed back down.

The bell jingled loudly, a constant rattling which set Rick's teeth on edge as it dinged over the murmur of panicked voices which rose as the uniformed police burst through, guns out and eyes a mix of wide, narrowed and assessing.

Rick shifted away from Kyle, casting him one last sad look before stepping back, slipping in beside Daryl in the leaving crowd. They wove through the retreating, frightened patrons and out into the fresh air.

Rick lowered his head and averted his eyes from the other people and the police left to cordon off the scene and speak to the witnesses. Daryl shadowed his steps and they moved when he did, pressing close to murmur over the high, panicked voices of the crowd.

“And you don't think you're a cop.” Rick’s head jerked up in his direction but Daryl was looking straight ahead at the car they were heading towards, his shoulders hunched in an attempt to disappear in the crowd.

When they broke away, unnoticed by the police, Daryl pulled ahead, circling the car and throwing himself into the passenger seat. Rick cast one last look back towards the diner before stepping into the truck and slipping the key into the ignition.

The silence between them seemed heavy in the small space of the cab. Rick shot Daryl a glance, he was slouched against the door, his fingers drumming on the windowsill as he frowned at the road ahead of them.

Feeling Rick’s gaze on him, Daryl tilted his head and slanted his eyes at Rick. He looked at him with a strange expression, one Rick was tempted to call sadness but he didn’t understand why.

“What?” Rick asked as he looked back to the road.

“You don’t even know who you are and you’re still a better man than me.” Rick’s head shot towards Daryl in surprise, who was watching Rick from under his fringe.

“That ain’t true Daryl, you’re a good man.” Daryl rolled his eyes and slumped back against the seat. Rick returned his eyes to the road and chewed on his lip, a habit he thought he’d copied off Daryl. “I wonder about me,” he said into the silence, “if I’m such a good man, why do I… keep getting into these situations? Why do I carry a gun I shouldn’t have? And leave my son to drift nowhere.” There was the sound of leather and denim shifting on old vinyl but he kept his eyes straight ahead.

“I’ve known Rick Grimes as long as you have and you’re the only one who doesn’t believe he’s a good man.”

Rick frowned ahead at the road, forcing his shoulders to relax and let the burr of the tires over the road soothe him.

 

He pulled into a motel two towns over while it was still light. Daryl shot him a look but didn’t say anything, just grabbed their bags and checked the straps on his bike as Rick rented them a room for the night.

In the room, Daryl lowered himself carefully onto the closest bed and rubbed his hands roughly over his face, twisting his torso gingerly, testing his side. Rick cast him a glance as he passed and let his eyes linger on his slumped form as he shouldered his way into the bathroom.

The tap clanked and rattled when he turned it on and it spluttered before luke-warm water rushed out. The water felt cold on the hot skin of his face and he rubbed at his eyes, ignoring the dribbles of water that got caught in his beard and slipped down his throat.

He lifted his head up, rubbing his shirt sleeve over his face and met his eyes in the mirror. Bracing his arms on the basin, the hard rim digging into the meat of his palms, he shifted his eyes down to the ring of rust circling the sink hole.

His arms shook and he tightened his grip to try and stop it. It wasn’t panic, not really, but the adrenaline needed somewhere to go. It rolled in his guts and caught in his throat like sick as his breathing went tight.

Daryl appeared over his shoulder in the mirror and he lifted his head to look at him. He was a long line, slouched against the doorframe, broad shoulders seeming to fill the space. Rick’s reflection looked pale and gaunt in the crappy light. Daryl somehow managed to look tanned and strong.

Daryl's head lolled to rest on the doorframe as he watched Rick. "You got a death wish?" Daryl asked and Rick's eyebrows went high.

"This coming from you?" Daryl shrugged, one broad shoulder lifting and falling, face passive.

"It’s different facing a gun you know’s been following you. You stepped in front of that gun, looked right down the barrel and didn’t even blink."

"Couldn't let him shoot up the place." Daryl nodded before bowing his head.

"I wanna blow you." Rick blinked, surprised.

"Blow me?" Daryl jerked his head in a nod before he pushed off from the doorjamb and crossed the space between them.

He sunk to his knees, his face contorting a little but he didn’t even seem to notice, eyes already at Rick’s groin. He licked his lips to wet them as he reached forward and Rick had to bite back a strangled noise as he caught them on the buckle of his belt.

"You're going to hurt your side." Daryl frowned up at him, a look of disbelief crossing his face.

At Rick’s uncompromising expression Daryl huffed and rose, accepting a hand to brace against as he pulled himself up.

Rick crowded him when he stood, not giving him a chance to do anything before he was moving him backwards, out the bathroom and into the main room.

Daryl let himself be herded towards the bed and Rick felt justified in stopping him in the bathroom when he eased onto the covers, a hand hovering by his side before he caught himself and rolled his eyes at Rick's pointed look before grabbing at Rick’s belt and pulling him forward.

Rick let himself be pulled, caught by the way Daryl glanced up at him, eyes fixed on his face as he undid Rick's belt. Slipping it out of the hoops with a hiss of leather against denim, Daryl shifted his attention down to his hands as he pulled the button free and lowered the zipper, biting absently at his bottom lip as he worked.

Rick ran his fingers through Daryl’s hair, brushing it back and tracing the lines of his face as Daryl pulled Rick’s dick out. His eyes were focused and his mouth was loose and red looking, a glimmer of sunlight through the partially closed curtains catching on the fresh sheen of saliva on his lips.

Daryl cast a look up, bright eyes wide as he caught Rick looking and the second seemed to stretch between them. Rick's chest was tight, adrenaline still rang loudly through his limbs and he felt his fingertips buzz with electricity where they were buried in Daryl’s hair.

He didn’t know what his expression was showing but Daryl lowered his eyes, focusing on the flesh in his hand and pressed in close to the base of Rick's dick. His eyelashes fluttered as he nuzzled Rick's pubic hair and seemed to breathe in deeply.

His expression was mellow when he took Rick into his mouth and sucked sloppily on the head, letting his tongue lap at the crown. His eyelashes a dark smudge against his cheekbones as he hollowed his cheeks and gave himself over to it.

Rick couldn’t look away. The hot, tight feeling in his skin shifted, became deeper and heavier somehow as he gazed at Daryl, at his beautiful damaged face, still bearing the fading colours of his beating and accident. Running his fingers through the soft strands of his hair Rick breathed a shuddering breath when Daryl loosened his jaw and pulled Rick's hips forward so he slid further into his mouth.

They hadn’t done this much, when they did fuck it was impulsive and fast, each of them striving towards completion in the fastest way, too often with bruises still blooming or the late night heavy on their lips.

This time, it was like they’d stepped out of the world they lived in, the daylight pressed against the windows, Daryl’s body still damaged and Rick's nerves alive and a sick feeling in his throat just starting to fade.

He wondered, as he stared down at the way his dick stretched Daryl’s mouth open wide and the way he flushed red and inelegant and strangely beautiful, why Daryl stuck around. What he got from travelling with Rick, how he saw him. He wanted to shy away from that, to not look too closely at Daryl’s last question, to pick apart how it painted him in the other man’s mind.

It was an ugly thought; one he had worried at in the late hours more than once. Never with those words before, never so bluntly put, but he had wondered whether he should have woken up, whether he was living by some kind of cosmic mistake and through these acts, was chasing the death he’d escaped.

The pads of his fingers ghosted over the hollow in Daryl’s cheeks and his stomach swooned a little at the feeling of him under Rick’s hands. Daryl seemed to shudder at the feeling, pulling harder at the dick between his lips and making Rick's knees feel weak like they would buckle at any moment.

Sweat was blooming across his skin, sticking the fabric of his clothes to him unpleasantly. His  shirt clung to him with every shift of his muscles and he could feel the hair at the back of his neck becoming wet and heavy.

He cursed through gritted teeth into the quiet room, his breaths sounding punched out of him as he cupped Daryl's face in his hands, one thumb rubbing over the stretched skin of Daryl’s lips and making them both shudder.

Daryl pulled off, licked his lips and cursed before mouthing at the head of Rick's dick, his throat working to swallow the spit which dribbled down his chin. He cast a glance up at Rick, pupils blown wide as he tongued at the slit and sucked.

Rick’s hand went tight in Daryl’s hair and he bared his teeth against the sensation. When his vision cleared, Daryl was looking up at him and his eyes were bright and amused.

There was the shuffling of fabric and Rick tore his gaze away from Daryl’s face to see he had pulled his dick out and was fisting it tightly as his mouth moved.

The feeling in Rick’s stomach was entirely arousal now, his skin was hot and flushed and the air in the room felt thin and insubstantial. He pulled away from Daryl’s mouth, his breath catching at the sight of his red, wet lips falling open and how Daryl tried to chase after him, straining against the hold Rick had on his hair.

“Lay back.” Rick's voice was a rough rasp which surprised him and he swallowed thickly to try and clear it. Daryl raised his eyebrows in amused disbelief, eyes wide as he looked between Rick's face and his dick. “Lay back on the bed.” Rick repeated and after a beat Daryl did, pulling himself back gently, moving slower than he normally would.

Rick watched him, his breath caught in his throat as he watched the other man move. When Daryl had settled Rick unbuttoned his shirt, working each button through its hole with care, working slowly so he didn’t fumble with his numb-feeling fingers. He could feel Daryl’s eyes on him and he fought to keep his breathing measured as he spoke.

“Undress.” Rick ordered. Daryl’s eyes trailed leisurely over Rick’s body, taking his time to take everything in before his mouth quirked up in a smirk and he shrugged against the ugly floral comforter and began to undress.

“I said I wanna blow you.” Daryl said, his eyes flicking back up to Rick.

Rick kicked off his boots and watched the way Daryl’s hips lifted and he shimmied to pull his jeans down before kicking them off carelessly. Rick met Daryl’s eyes when he smiled, dropping his jeans to his ankles and kicking them towards where he’d dumped his shirt. “You will.”

Daryl’s eyebrows rode high but he pulled his t-shirt off with one fluid move, revealing the splashes of colour and the bright white dressing on his side. Rick didn’t let his eyes linger on the patch of white, instead letting his eyes trail over the long line of Daryl’s body, spread out comfortably on the old comforter.

“I wanna blow you too.” Daryl laughed, loud and bright and it made Rick's lips twitch.

“Are you serious?” He asked around a laugh. Rick nodded and Daryl’s eyes went dark and unfocused before he nodded, sucking his lips into his mouth and watching as Rick climbed onto the bed.

His knees sunk into the soft mattress and he crawled alongside Daryl’s body, taking the time to observe the other man. Admiring the shape of him, spread out underneath him. He paused before settling down along Daryl’s side.

It took some maneuvering but they settled in close together on their sides, groin to face. Rick wrapped one hand around Daryl’s hips, cupping one ass cheek proprietarily and pulling Daryl into his mouth without preamble, closing his eyes and focusing on the feel of his mouth being filled.

Daryl sucked eagerly at Rick's dick and Rick struggled not to get swept away in it. He pulled Daryl into his mouth and sucked eagerly, spit dribbling out of his mouth and coating his chin as he worked. With his spare hand he trailed his fingers between Daryl’s balls and fingered around his hole, making Daryl's hips buck and twitch as he released high, needy noises around Rick's dick.

They rocked together, mouths working and hands gripping tightly as they sought their pleasure, coaxing reactions out of each other as their bodies grew slick with sweat and became hot to the touch. The air in the room was close and damp and Rick gasped at it whenever he pulled off, feeling light-headed with pleasure and the need to please.

Rick's hands gripped Daryl tightly, hard enough to leave bruises and the thought settled in his gut, building atop the sensations Daryl wrung out of him. It was like chasing something intangible, a driving need to push forward as it built in his gut.

Daryl was hard lines and a hot wet suction around him. Hemade slurping noises and desperate gasps when he pulled off and his body twitched and spasmed in Rick's arms, a hot, writhing animal against him. Ricklost his sense of reality momentarily, everything narrowing down to their entwined forms, the feeling of sweat-slicked skin, spit and stubble and hands grasping tight and endless, desperate suction around his dick which felt like it was tearing every morsel of humanity from him.

He chased it, his grip growing tighter, his hands clasping more urgently as his muscles spasmed and his breath caught. Daryl stilled before a shudder ran through his entire frame and hot, wet cum spilled into Rick's mouth, splattering across his lips and chin. Ashe jerked desperately at the hard flesh Rick felt his own orgasm approaching, almost surprising despite the build. It was like a balloon bursting and everything which had built within him rushed out, spilling out of Daryl’s mouth though he chased it, trying to catch it all, to suck the last shuddering moments out of him.

They pulled away gasping. Rick eased Daryl onto his back and turned on the bed to lay beside him, their chests heaving as they caught their breath.

He looked over at Daryl, taking in the smear of come across his chin and swollen lips, the bright flush which coloured his sweaty face and ran down his throat to his chest. He slitted his eyes open and looked at Rick. His abused lips curled up and Rick returned the smile, leaning forward to press a loose, open-mouthed kiss on Daryl's lips before pulling back and sinking into the buzz under his skin and the heat of the room, Daryl a warm solid weight along his side.

 

They kept driving because that was all they could think of doing. They were both too restless to stay in one place more than a day or two and the small cab of the truck was more of a home than any of the motels they passed through.

Rick sent postcards when one caught his eye. He never let himself think about it too hard, he wrote what came to mind and sent it before he could second-guess himself. He wanted to talk himself out of it, to point out that random disjointed remarks from an absent father weren't helping Carl in any way; but he didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to break the thin lifeline he had to his son.

Daryl watched him when he did it, eyes heavy and dark as he watched Rick go through the motions. He didn’t say anything or tried to read what he wrote, simply watched his pen move and the thin strip of card disappear into the letterbox with a carefully neutral expression.

Rick imagined the letters flying out behind him, flying to his son and showing him a roadmap of his life, points on a map and names of towns, some small tangible reference to a father he’d lost.

 

They were in an unremarkable gas station when they heard the low rumble of motorbikes. Rick looked up from the spinning display of postcards, fingers tensing around the thin card he held in his hand and looked up, meeting Daryl’s gaze.

They moved without having to speak, Daryl scooped up his change and Rick fell into step beside him. They moved as one through the sliding glass doors, ducking their heads and hunching their shoulders, feigning disinterest as they passed the bikes which were parked in formation between them and the truck. Rick didn’t even realise he was still holding the thin, glossy postcard until he was halfway across the lot. He folded it, tucking it into his back pocket and let his fingers touch the python in the back of his waistband briefly to steady himself.

Circling around the bikes they kept their heads low and Rick didn’t breathe again until they made it into the cab of the truck and pulled away onto the highway. In the rear-view mirror he saw the men around the bikes talking, arms waving, and if he strained his hearing he could almost hear the murmur of raised voices.

He knew they were in trouble when half the group returned to their bikes and even from the distance between them they could hear the roar of powerful engines coming to life.

Rick’s hand clenched tightly around the steering wheel. He glanced at Daryl who met his gaze and nodded in understanding.

Violence was intrinsic in the life they’d made together, it haunted them. When they passed a group of bikers they readied themselves, preparing for a fight that could come without warning. Once or twice it did, figures appearing in the rear-view mirror or waiting in the parking lot of a bar or diner.

The times between each fight became longer, men looked away, casting their eyes aside as though pretending they hadn’t seen them or hadn’t recognised Daryl.

No one went for them like the first group had. They fought well together but didn’t need to fight with the same bare desperation of that day on the side of the road, life or death determined by who threw the fastest punch.

It seemed more like posturing now and while they both wanted to relax at the seeming decline in danger, neither of them did, remaining aware and cautious whenever they heard the roar of an engine or saw men in black leather or worn denim.

This group made Rick wary, something in the way they had set out after them made his skin buzz with adrenaline and remembered violence. He didn’t know what they had planned, how they thought this would work out and not knowing set his teeth on edge.

Pressing his foot against the accelerator he sped through the bright day, moving his car around the traffic speeding down the highway, trying to keep the figures on the bikes in his rear-view mirror from gaining on them.

The truck whined and strained under the pressure but followed Rick's instructions and eventually the figures disappeared behind them. Neither Rick nor Daryl spoke, adrenaline still keeping their bodies tense as they watched the horizon behind them, waiting for them to reappear, to close in and force a confrontation.

The tension in the cab lessened after ten minutes of no sighting. After twenty, Rick let his shoulders relax back into the familiar vinyl upholstery and he chanced a glance at Daryl who was leaning back against the passenger side door and watching Rick.

He turned off the highway onto a road which skirted the edges of another small town, as unremarkable as the previous. The view out the window shifted and the traffic lessened to a trickle before disappearing completely until it seemed like they were the only car on the road.

“Damnit.” Daryl said as though just remembering something. Rick quirked a brow at him. “I forgot to piss at the gas station.”

Rick let out a laugh, the last of the tension leaving him at the explosion of air which left him. Looking back at Daryl he smiled, taking in the way he ducked his head, hiding his smile behind the long strands of his hair.

“I can just pull over.” Daryl’s eyes slipped out the window and he shrugged a shoulder and nodded. Rick smiled out the windshield as he pulled onto the roadside near a copse of trees.

Daryl jumped out of the car, circled around to Rick’s side, leant against the door in his usual boneless slouch and smirked at Rick.

“Someone comes you fucking honk.” Rick chuckled lowly, and Daryl smiled, a small quirk of his lips as he leant forward.

Rick braced himself for the kiss he saw in Daryl’s eyes. When Daryl’s smile widened, becoming teasing and playful and he moved to pull away Rick let his hand shoot out, his fingers taking a tight hold of Daryl’s hair and keeping him close.

He angled Daryl’s head to suit him and pulled him into a deep, slow kiss, bleeding the excess adrenaline which tingled through him into the other man. He took his time to work his mouth open, tasting the other man and waiting to feel Daryl melt into the kiss before pulling away, combing his fingers through the long strands of Daryl’s hair before pulling his hand away.

Daryl took a slow step back, sucking his lips into his mouth as he blinked his eyes open slowly to look at Rick. The moment stretched between them, the tension of the near miss shifting and simmering into something deeper, a shared moment on the side of the road between survivors, a moment about life, connection. Not fear, adrenaline or violence.

Rick smiled and watched the corners of Daryl’s lips curl up, pleased, before he turned on his heel and moved behind the trees.

 

The door of the truck creaked when Rick opened it. Stepping onto the dusty roadside he left the door open and moved away from the truck and towards the road. He butted the toes of his boots against the edge of the road and looked in either direction, squinting against the bright afternoon sunlight, taking in the flat land and the sky which stretched out in every direction.

He didn’t want to, but he remembered the last time they’d faced men on a roadside. He could remember it in sense memories, the impact of flesh on flesh, cartilage breaking under his fist, the feel of his gun in his hands and the weight of it coming down against another man's head.

It had crept into his dreams, the look on Daryl’s face as he was held immobile, the moment when Rick knew in the deepest part of his heart that he could pull that trigger, could kill the man in front of him and anyone who got in his way.

He didn't know what made him feel worse, that deep understanding that he was capable of that, or the ache of the beating he took.

Shaking the thoughts away he watched Daryl reappear from behind the trees. His steps slowed when he saw Rick on the side of the road. He watched Rick from under his fringe, eyes darting to the side to look at where the road they’d come down slipped away from sight.

He didn’t approach, just pulled out his crumpled packet of cigarettes and stuck one between his lips, ducking his head to catch the flame from his lighter before heaving himself up onto the bonnet of the truck, reclining back against the windshield and closing his eyes against the bright afternoon sun.

Rick watched him, his eyes trailing over the long line of his body, the bulge and flex of muscles he knew intimately hidden under worn clothes.

Looking away he searched the horizon in front of him, over fields and flat land, the woods off to one side, the whole scene topped with the endless powder blue sky.

He pulled out the folded rectangle of the blank postcard from his back pocket. There was a hard score of white across the glossy photos of fields and a small town hall, the only remarkable things about the town. A town they hadn’t even bothered to stop at, too much like the ones that came before and the ones they were heading towards. It didn’t matter that they were chased out of town, didn’t matter if they’d had all day to spend there, it was just another town that didn’t mean anything to him.

Looking down at the raw edge of the fold he flipped it over and his eyes settled on the blank card. He hadn’t even filled out the address and the empty space seemed haunting now, a mockery of the insubstantial notes he sent.

But how could he possibly write about what happened to them? Days of driving bookended by violence, either the same danger that had shadowed their steps since before Rick had met Daryl or violence Rick seemed to bring on himself, chasing after it under the guise of _the right thing_ , some hazy moral compass which didn’t seem to make sense.

He looked across at Daryl, perched on the bonnet of the truck, his knees up as he looked towards the distant woods, the line of a graze on his cheek peeking through the strands of his hair.

He barely showed the signs of exhaustion which had to be weighing him down. Months of running, of being chased from every direction left its toll. They’d been chasing him since before Rick had met him and the spectre of his missing brother haunted his steps, an extra weight to pull him down.

Rick turned fully and faced the other man. Daryl’s eyes slid to him at the sound of his boots on the loose gravel, his expression softened minutely and Rick’s stomach bloomed warm and tight. 

“You just going to run forever?” Rick asked and Daryl cocked his head at him.

“What other option is there?” He shrugged one broad shoulder, his eyes moving away from Rick “And why not? You’re running.”

“I ain’t running.” Rick could taste the lie as it left his mouth. Daryl huffed a breath that might have been a laugh.

“We may not be running from the same things but we’re sure as shit both running.” Rick bowed his head but didn’t say anything.

When the sun shifted into pre-twilight they climbed into the car and rode into the oncoming darkness. The folded card left in the dust beside the road, forgettable in the last dwindling moments of day.

The radio crackled between them as they stared out into the darkening world. Rick watched the ovals cast by the headlights and thought about where they were going. The endless road which stretched out in front of them. There was no safe place for them to reach, no reprieve from the shadows which haunted them.

For a moment he was sad, sad for a future the old Rick had lost and he had cast aside, sad for a future Daryl would never have and didn’t seem to realise should have been an option.

He looked across at Daryl who slouched low in the passenger seat, his feet up on the dash and his eyes out the open window, eyes up at the sky as though he was seeing something in the clouds and speckled stars which was just for him.

When he reached over and rested his hand on Daryl's laying on the bench seat between them, Daryl cast him a quick glance before returning to the dark world outside. His hand slipped into Rick's, curling gently around his fingers in a way which seemed unconscious and Rick felt the tight pressure in his chest ease, the feeling of release spreading through his body and easing him back into the worn car seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...was it just me or did that end up being a kinda side chapter?  
>  Oh! and this chapter also included the 'extra' challenge which developed on RWG chat: a 69 scene!
> 
> One more to go!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final thanks to the awesome Ijustwantedutoneedme who beta'd this for me and kept me entertain while doing so!

Rick woke to the deep shadows of dusk, the interior of the car was hot and stuffy and he stretched against the seatback as he moved his limbs carefully, feeling the stretch and pull of muscles that had been still for too long.

Rubbing a hand over his eyes he cast a look around, sitting up when he couldn’t see the road. The car sat in the middle of a field, the woods peaked out over the crest of the small hill and the mountains to one side cut sweeping shapes across the pale sky, washed out and smeared with the colours of a sunset.

The driver’s seat was empty, the keys still in the ignition and no sign of Daryl. Pulling open the truck door with a groan of old metal, Rick stepped out onto what he now recognised as a dirt drive. The place seemed unnaturally silent, separate from the world somehow, unfamiliar with the lack of the black road he had become so familiar with over the months.

His footsteps seemed overly loud as he crossed the gravel road, dust kicking up with each step as he looked around him. He saw the house before he saw the small figure of Daryl sprawled across the front steps and the twisting in his guts eased at the sight of the other man.

Rick cast a glance at the squat building in the middle of nowhere as he approached, nature pressing close in every direction, as though trying to reclaim the building.

He knew he had Daryl’s attention as he approached, though the other man hadn’t shifted further than to lift his cigarette from his side to take a drag, long fingers pinching the white stick as he sucked the smoke in a way which Rick always found difficult to look away from.

When Rick came to a stop a few paces from the front steps Daryl lowered his head in a nod, hiding his eyes under his long fringe. Rick waited, knowing there must have been a reason they’d stopped here.

His eyes scanned the small house, taking in the peeling paintwork and dirty windows. It was little more than a cottage and it looked as much a part of the barren, rough land as it looked foreign in it.

Daryl’s voice when it came was a low, quiet rumble, said to his boots and chased immediately with a drag of his cigarette.

“I’ve never done this before.” Nothing more came and Rick frowned.

“What’re we talking about here?”

“This,” Daryl looked up, flipping his hand holding the cigarette through the air in a vague gesture, “you and me. I ain’t no fag. I ain’t nothing.” Rick watched his throat bob as he swallowed, eyes down as he continued. “There’s never been no one for me, no one I’ve wanted to stick around.” A shrug, “No one’s ever wanted to stick around.

“Before you I’d fucked three men and two women and decided that was it, I was done. It wasn’t for me. I kept my head down and hunted and watched my back and I did that for years.  People weren’t for me.” He trailed off for a moment, growing quiet. His eyes strayed to the tree line a little way off before his face shuttered and he looked at Rick. “Then Merle ghosts on me and my world goes to shit. I’d spent years keeping to myself and suddenly that wasn’t an option no more.

“And along comes you, mystery man with the eyes that see everything and I’m interested, I like the way you look, way you move and I figure I’m gonna die anyway, might as well take a chance and not give a damn about what that makes me.” He licked his chapped lips and Rick followed the movement with his eyes. His chest felt tight and he wanted to shift but he remained still, as though any noise might break Daryl from the moment and he’d never hear the rest.  “Only I keep wanting, I stick around... and I don’t wanna leave.” It was the most Daryl had said in all their time together. Weeks in close spaces together and Rick had gotten used to the way Daryl communicated - short and sharp, the important things said in the way he moved his body, the way he shifted his stance, whether he looked Rick in the eye or not. Everything Daryl did meant something, whether Rick could figure what that was or not didn’t matter, because there was always a point to everything he did.

“What is this place?” He asked. Daryl shrugged.

"There’s a lease sign down the end of the road,” he nodded down the long drive, "I like the look of it." Daryl held himself still, eyes on Rick's and whole body tense like a wire.

Rick licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry and his throat clicked when he tried to swallow. He looked back at the small house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature but still apart from it. He breathed in, taking in the smell of road dust, old wood and the electric smell of dusk.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, he scuffed a boot, hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and nodded once, eyes narrowing as he took in the house and the man sprawled with false ease along the steps.

“Let’s see inside.” There was a moment before Daryl reacted, nodding once and snubbing out his cigarette though it was only half smoked. He pulled himself up with a fluid movement and turned to stomp up the wooden steps onto the small porch.

The door was easy to open and Rick looked away, some vague feeling of honouring his past and the rules he’d helped enforce nagged at him as Daryl forced the lock and pushed it open.

The interior was dim, the cool late twilight barely passed through the dirty windows and cast silvery highlights along the edge of the few bits of furniture in the house.

It was small, one large room, a bedroom and a cramped bathroom. Rick wandered the small space, fingers trailing over the dust on the table that sat between the kitchen and the front of the house.

Turning a full circle, his eyes settled on Daryl standing in the kitchen. His hands were braced on either side of the sink and his eyes were out the window to the trees beyond.

The twilight painted him silver, washed the bronze and gold from him in a way which made him seem frozen in time, ethereal and otherworldly. Too beautiful to exist in the strange world of violence and disconnect that Rick had woken up in.

Cocking a hip against the table, Rick watched him. Feeling his gaze, Daryl turned and for a moment they stood in silence, two road rough men in an empty house, a world of things between them hanging heavy and unsaid in the distant echo of crickets.

“I’ve never really had a home. Don’t know how it works.” Daryl admitted finally.

“Me neither.” Rick crossed his arms over his chest and watched Daryl pull himself up to sit on the counter beside the sink. “The house they took me to after I got out of hospital was just a house with strangers in it, but it had photos and mementos all over the place. It was his home. He’d made it a home.”

Daryl studied him, picking at his cuticle and chewing on his lip as he frowned. Rick crossed to him, insinuating himself between Daryl's spread legs and laying a hand on each of his thighs, letting the broad stretch of his palms heat the denim under them and feeling the strong flex of muscle in the other man’s legs.

He concentrated on the way it felt to drag his hands up Daryl's thighs, the coarse weave of the fabric under his palms and the way Daryl's breath seemed to stutter in his chest as he shifted minutely on the countertop. When Rick looked at him his attention was fixed on Rick's face, eyes wide in the darkening room. Rick pressed close, kissing him before he thought about it, his eyes slipping shut as he tasted the other man with gentle lips.

They moved slow as molasses though the dark, their touches heavy and slow and it felt like time only existed outside the small house, cocooned by nature and space.

When he released Daryl's jeans Daryl let out a breath which seemed loud in the intimate darkness. His hands roved restlessly over Rick's body, strong fingers combing through his curls and fisting in the fabric of his shirt as Rick pumped Daryl's stiffening dick.

His head rolled backwards and he cursed up at the dark ceiling when Rick curled forward and took him into his mouth. He hunched over and sucked sloppily at the other man's dick, closing his eyes against the dark and humming quietly to himself. There was no urgency to it, Daryl shuddered and breathed into the hot air, his hands clutching at Rick as he worked him.  

He worked on Daryl’s dick with a single minded focus, moving his hands and his mouth over the other man's body to make him twitch and groan beneath him. The air in the room was hot and close, making sweat bloom across his skin as he worked. Daryl tasted like sweat and musk and the sharp bite of precum.

Pulling back, he cast a look up at Daryl and saw his face flushed red, his eyes hooded and focused down on him as his chest heaved with deep panting breaths. Sweat glittered appealingly on his throat and collarbones, exposed by the v of his shirt. His lips were wet and flushed and Rick's eyes roved over him hungrily, taking in the sharp angles of his features and the intense focus of the other man's eyes before bowing his head once more and taking him into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks as he sucked hard, gripping firmly at Daryl's hips as they twitched and tried to buck at the sensation.

Rick smiled into the folds of Daryl’s pants, pleased at the feel of Daryl's hands scrambling on his back and the grip they had in his hair. Daryl let out a pained breath when he came, his release splashing across Rick's tongue and Rick swallowed it thickly, testing the ache of his jaw and the rough feeling of his throat.

When he rose up Daryl's eyes were closed as he breathed heavily, mouth loose and soft looking as he caught his breath. His eyes were hooded when they opened and he looked at Rick for a moment. The shadows pressed close around them and the night was still and silent as Daryl pulled him forward, claiming his mouth in a possessive, heated kiss which Rick let himself melt into. 

He was pulled out of the hot haze he had sunk into when Daryl pushed him forcibly back. He stumbled, catching himself on the counter and blinking dumbly as Daryl jumped down from the counter and sunk to his knees in front of Rick.

Rick's breath came out in a pained groan when Daryl undid his belt and jeans, pulling him out into the hot room and sinking his mouth over him.

Daryl gave himself over to the act like he did with all sex, unselfconscious and indulgent, his cheeks flushed and eyes heavy lidded. Rick doubted he knew how he looked when he did it, how Rick found it hard to tear his eyes away from him.

He was harder than he realised from blowing Daryl, His flesh flushed and tight under Daryl’s ministrations. His hand tangled in Daryl’s hair, holding tightly as he bobbed his head and Rick gripped it tighter, tilting his head up so his eyes slanted up at Rick, Blue eyes unfocused and lips stretched tight. Rick swore, fighting how his eyes shuttered closed as arousal rocked through his body, shooting from his toes up to the roaring in his ears.

Lightening his grip he lolled his head back, taking in heavy gasps of the close, hot air and squeezing his eyes shut as he rested his hand on the curve of Daryl’s skull as he moved happily on Rick’s dick, letting out pants and muffled moans punctuated by the wet slurp of his mouth working.

It didn’t take long for Rick to tense, his body curling forward over Daryl as he pulled his orgasm out of him, sucking it from his dick as Rick cursed and sweated into the hot room. His breaths didn't seem to fill his lungs as he chased the last electric shocks of his orgasm.

Pulling away he looked down to Daryl who was panting wetly, eyes closed above his flushed cheeks, mouth open and red, slick with spit and come and Rick felt another shudder run through his gut at the sight.

He pulled Daryl up by his hold in his hair, not giving him a second to catch himself before he pulled him forward into a kiss, licking into his mouth lazily and closing his eyes as he breathed the other man in.

They stood like that, pressed close lazily in the small kitchen until Daryl eventually pulled himself away, bowing his head to refasten his pants. Rick watched him with heavy lidded eyes as he tucked himself back into his own pants, taking his time to buckle his belt back up as he tongued absently at his swollen lips, watching him.

Daryl met his gaze as he rethreaded his belt through a couple of loops and smiled at him, ducking his head to hide it behind his fringe. Rick felt his own lips pull in a wide smile and he took the one step it took to close the distance between them.

Daryl looked up, leaning gratefully into the kiss when Rick leant closer, huffing a breath between them as his lips quirked up against Rick's.

Rick pulled away and mouthed at the join of jaw and throat under Daryl’s ear, murmuring into his skin as he tasted sweat.

“Don’t you have to screw on every surface of a new house?” Daryl laughed, pulling his face away from Rick so he could look at him properly, his mouth twisted in a bemused smile.

“You’re asking me?” Rick shrugged.

“It’s what they do in all the books.” Rick said and Daryl shook his head, his eyes growing soft as he moved forward to mouth at the stubble on Rick’s throat, tonguing at where his beard thinned out into the skin of his throat.

“You read shit.” He muttered into Rick's skin and Rick shrugged, combing his hand through Daryl’s hair and tilting his throat back to welcome him.

“Have to learn about the world somehow.”

“We could just make our own.” Daryl murmured. Rick smiled, pulling Daryl up into a kiss. Their teeth knocked together and their breath was hot between them as they smiled into each other’s mouths.

 

The lease sign had been a few words painted by hand on a board at the end of the drive. The owner was a farmer on the other side of the small town who eyed them warily but agreed to lease the house out to them for a couple of months. They agreed to pay cash and he agreed to keep any record of them off the books.

They said they were hunters passing through, staying in the area for a while. Nobody really questioned them, only cast them curious looks and Rick knew whispers followed them when they passed through town but nobody caused them any trouble. They were wary, but not hostile, and that was just fine for them.

It was a small town with nothing that made it particularly remarkable. It had a small family run grocery store, a post office, bank, diner and bar around the town square and houses spreading out in every direction.

In their small house miles from town, it was easy to forget its existence when they wanted to. Daryl hunted most days, sometimes just tracking animals for hours with no real need to hunt for food. He caught all the meat they ate and most days he attempted to teach Rick something about this part of his life. Turning his aim to hunting, his attention to detail to tracking.

They wandered deeper into the woods some days, getting lost amongst the wilderness and each time Daryl led them home before dark, a quiet calm and assurance to his steps which Rick had trouble tearing his gaze away from.

He belonged out here, a wild man apart from society and Rick longed to belong out there with him.

Some days Rick stayed around the house or went into town without Daryl. He settled in, got on nodding acquaintanceship with some of the locals and could chat vaguely with the girl who operated the till in the grocery store and the waiter at the diner on the days he brought their dinner there and took it home.

They acquired furniture and some food in the cupboards. Cleaning most of the dust and grime away took him days but he enjoyed it, inspecting each inch of the house he uncovered, studying how it was put together and how they slotted into it, inhabiting it and making it a patchwork home just for the two of them.

They shared a mattress on the floor of the small bedroom. The blinds closed against the day it was a place outside of time, where the only thing that existed was each other. At night, Rick pulled Daryl close to him, held his body close to his own and they let the rest of the world slip away.

In the small house away from anywhere it was easy to grow closer, to let touches linger, to demonstrate affection through contact - pulling the other close, kissing them when they wanted to. They didn’t have to talk about it, didn’t have to work at it, it just happened and Rick felt the buzzing under his skin soothe, replaced with the warmth of connection.

 

The isolation and the world they’d built for themselves made interruptions all the more jarring.

Rick heard the car before he saw it. He looked out towards the road and saw the plume of dust that signalled a car was coming up the dirt track.

He watched its approach as he finished hanging out the clothes, keeping his movements calm and precise. He knew he was tensing, his fingers itching for the gun he didn’t have at his side and his mind already thinking up a hundred ways for this to go.

When the car came to a stop Rick moved away from the line and towards the front of the house. He knew Daryl had heard the car, was probably waiting by the door with crossbow in hand.

The figure that emerged was familiar and for one moment Rick thought he remembered. That this was some guy from his past and he knew him just by the shape of him. The thought was gone in a second and it left his heart feeling squeezed-tight and aching. He did recognise him, did know him just by the shape of him, but it wasn’t from before, wasn’t some figure from his forgotten past.

Shane had shaved his head, a short buzz cut that suited the hard, broad angles of his face. He ambled over slowly, taking his time so he could take everything in. He had a hand on his buckle like he did when he was wearing a gun belt but he was in jeans and a loose shirt, half unbuttoned against the heat.

Rick wondered how Shane saw him, whether he saw his friend from so long ago or whether Rick was a stranger now.

“What’re you doing here?” He didn’t know why he didn’t say hello – Daryl's antisocial tendencies were rubbing off on him he supposed. Though if he’d once known Shane as well as Shane said he did, maybe it was instinct to skip the pleasantries, to cut right to the heart of it. Because in the end, isn’t that what you do when you know someone well?

“We were worried about you. Last couple of postcards to Carl were from around here, figured it was worth a look.” He’d come to a halt a few paces away and was studying Rick, head cocked a little to one side and his gaze was focused.

Daryl made his footsteps heard. Rick knew damn well he had because he could move as quiet as a shadow and did most of the time without thinking. Rick turned to watch him push through the screen door. It creaked like it always did and for a moment Rick was surprised that that sound could be so familiar, could settle right in his gut and whisper home to him when just a few paces away, there was a man who he’d apparently known his entire life, who he’d loved since they were skinned-kneed boys but he didn’t remember a damn second of it.

“Rick?” Daryl’s low rumble broke him from his thoughts and he glanced back at Shane who was watching the new arrival with a frown, dark eyes narrowed and shoulders back.

Rick met Daryl's gaze and shook his head minutely. Daryl paused for a moment before turning back and re-entering the house without a word. Rick watched his shadow disappear past the screen and breathed in the smell of his home: old wood, dry dirt, motor oil and the woods that crept close. He’d never realised before that it was the same smell Daryl had always had.

Shane was still looking at the house and where Daryl had disappeared.

“What is this, man?” Shane asked, shifting his gaze to Rick. Rick shrugged, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops and scuffing a booted foot against the dirt.

“Home.”

“This ain’t your home man. This is some dump in the middle of fucking nowhere with some guy that looks like he should be in fucking jail. What is this?”

“This is my home. I don’t need to explain my life to you.” Shane scoffed, taking half a step closer and leaning in.

“I deserve an explanation. _Lori_ deserves an explanation. You remember Lori? Carl? Your goddamn family.”

“No. I don’t remember.”

Shane looked like he’d been slapped and like he wanted to hit something. He let out a breath and looked towards the mountains to the side, shaking his head to himself before looking back at Rick.

“That don’t change it.” He said, “You’ve been my brother since you moved from Atlanta at five years old. We looked out for each other. When Brandon Mathers picked on you in fifth grade I was there for you, when Keith Sutherland thought you were screwing around with his girl in sophomore year and tried to kick your ass I was with you.” He swallowed visibly and licked his lips. “I been on the force with you for fourteen years. I watched you get shot man! I’ve had more late nights and wild parties with you than with anyone.

“I was with you when you fell in love with Lori, you said she was the most beautiful girl in the world and you were damn well going to marry her. I heard about your first kiss, your first fight. I was there when you first held your son in your arms. I’ve seen you cry and I’ve seen you bleed. And you’re telling me that’s all fucking gone because you don’t remember?

“What about me, man? I thought you would die in my arms that day and it was the happiest moment of my life when you woke up.” His voice was hoarse and Rick had to look away.

“What am I meant to do?”

“Try.” Rick choked on a laugh and shook his head.

“I’ve tried! I try every night when I lay awake, when nightmares I don’t remember wake me up. I try every time I enter a shop and wonder what the old me would have bought. Did he like Cheerio’s? Or was he a Crunchy Nut kinda guy? I wonder if I liked being a cop. Who the first girl I kissed was, what this other me would do in any given situation. I’m tired of trying, I’m tired of chasing this man I don’t know.”

“So you just give it all up and live in this dump with some guy?”

“That ‘some guy’ is Daryl, and I don’t need to be anyone else with him, he doesn’t look at me like I’m doing things wrong, like I’m some hazy fucking picture of who I used to be.” Rick swallowed thickly and looked at Shane. “I’m sorry your friend is dead. I am. I’m sorry Lori’s husband is gone. But I can’t make him come back.”

They stood where they were for a moment, the sun hot on Rick’s neck and the sound of a bird somewhere off in the distance. Daryl could tell him what kind of bird it was, probably already had.

Shane scuffed his boot against the ground and rubbed distractedly at his shaved head. The crickets were loud in the silence between them.

“I miss you, man.” Shane looked around at the bare dirt, the mountains to one side and the woods to the other, at how the blue sky stretched out in all direction and at the peeling paint on the old house, sitting squat and square in the landscape. “Why the hell are you out here?” Rick shrugged one shoulder.

“I like it out here. We go hunting most days, it’s an hour's ride into town, nobody bothers coming out here and they leave us be.” He looked out towards the mountains, smooth, rolling peaks that rose up dramatically and sank down just as fast.

The grass was sunburnt golden at this time of year, it crunched under his booted feet when he walked out in it. Daryl always said he walked too heavy but Rick knew that sometimes Daryl scuffed his feet just to see the dust come up and that he liked to snap the taller grass with his fingers to feel it crunch. “I like the quiet.”

 

Shane’s steps seemed loud on the bare floorboards of the house. His bulk seemed large and unwieldy moving through the spaces in a way Daryl’s wide shoulders never were. He studied everything, from the cracks in the walls to the dark wood of the floorboards.

Rick knew what their home looked like, with the threadbare couch and the battered tv they’d lugged in, along with a handful of random paperbacks they’d picked up along the way. The table that separated kitchen from living room was scarred and marked, old wood with creaking chairs that came with the place. The rooms were sunlit, pale walls and exposed wood. It wasn’t messy or clean, it had the clutter that came with living in a place and Rick refused to judge it now.

Daryl was in the kitchen, leaning against the sink with his gaze out the window, though Rick knew he’d heard them come in and knew exactly where they were in the room. The sunshine glowed like honey on his skin and made his hair a mix of golds and reds. Rick wanted to kiss the mole over his lip, to run his fingers through those strands of golden fire and press close to his strong frame, press muscle to muscle and smell motor oil, sweat and leather on the other man. He usually would and his hesitation made him hate himself a little.

Shane was looking towards the bedroom, the door left open to reveal the bed they never bothered to make. It was dim and cool in there, the blinds closed against the afternoon light, though it pressed against the blinds and glowed warm and secretive like light through treacle, deepening the shadows of the room and highlighting the folds of the bed sheets in gold.

“You want a beer?” Daryl finally asked, his voice gravelly low and disinterested. Rick felt his lips quirk.

Daryl glanced at him to see his nod and Shane must have done the same because Daryl reached into the icebox and pulled out two bottles, twisting the caps off before placing them neatly side by side on the counter and reaching back in for one for himself. “So who are you?” He studied Shane with narrowed eyes, taking in every detail as Shane did the same.

“Deputy Shane Walsh. You?”

“Daryl.”

“Just Daryl?” Daryl lifted one shoulder and let it drop.

“Like the pope.” Shane let it pass though he didn’t move his gaze from Daryl or ease his stance.

“You live here with Rick?” Shane's eyes darted to the open doorway of the bedroom and Daryl's lips twisted meanly at the tell.

Daryl pulled himself onto the bench and settled in with his knees spread wide and his lips curled up. He stared steadily at Shane as he took a slow swallow from his beer before resting it on the counter between his spread legs, holdingthe neck of the bottle in his circled fist and baring his teeth in a smile.

“Yeah. It’s real cosy.” Rick wanted to smack him, he knew how Daryl was, how he liked to push and shove and get a reaction because he worked best reacting to something. Rick didn’t know why he didn’t want that now, didn’t want to provoke Shane who he somehow knew was as hot-headed and volatile as Daryl.

“Damnit Daryl.” Rick breathed, Daryl shook his head and huffed a laugh as he jumped off the counter. He shouldered past Rick and out the back door.

Rick watched through the kitchen window as he made his way towards the woods, pulling out his cigarettes as he walked.

When he looked back at Shane he was rubbing at his neck and staring at his booted feet.

“How long have you known I was here?” Rick eventually asked. Shane looked up, the lines of his face hard as he scoffed, moving a few steps so he could lean against the counter and level Rick with a hard look.

“I didn’t. For a man with no memory, you sure know how to cover your tracks.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to be found.”

“Yeah, we got that hint, thanks.”

 

Daryl returned when the sun began to dip below the trees. He watched them like a wary animal when he pushed through the door and didn’t pause before crossing to the bathroom and closing himself in.

The pipes rattled and clanked when he turned the shower on and Rick tried to ignore the white noise of the shower as he and Shane talked over beers.

It wasn’t the easy camaraderie of old friends but it wasn’t the stilted conversation of two strangers either. They existed in an in-between world, a history which loomed around them that only one of them knew.

Shane was tense, hyper aware of the space around them and Rick felt on edge, judged in a way he hadn’t known before. Daryl’s absence was like a gaping wound they couldn’t help but poke at and pretend they weren’t.

When Daryl finally emerged all three men were tense and it made the small house seem even smaller. They moved around each other, circling each other like wary animals, stepping around the many topics they didn't feel prepared to confront and pretending they didn’t know they were there.

The afternoon deepened into evening and Shane hesitantly agreed to stay the night instead of driving back to King County at night. 

Rick made dinner in the lengthening shadows, beer at his elbow as he spoke with Shane.

Daryl situated himself in the corner of the kitchen, close enough that Rick brushed against him every few steps, but he didn’t say much, attention fixed on his beer with half an ear to the conversation but offered no input.

 

They ate around the scarred table in strained quiet. The sound of the crickets and the scrape of the cutlery against the plates seemed deafening between the conversation that drifted between them.

Rick glanced up to see Shane's attention fixed on him as he held his cutlery tightly in his fisted hands.

“Carl likes the postcards.” Daryl stilled at his side, he chewed carefully but there was a tense stillness to his body. “He’s doing good, getting good grades.” Shane carefully cut a small section of his steak with careful, precise movements. “He’s a smart kid.” Rick nodded when Shane glanced up. “Lori-”

There was the scrape of wood on wood when Daryl pushed his chair back. He took his plate with him and closed himself into the bedroom without a word.

Rick stared at the closed door, hearing the rustle of the sheets as Daryl settled on the bed, then nothing.

He sighed deeply, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. He could feel the weight of Shane’s gaze on him which he ignored as he turned his attention to the rest of his meal.

He ate systematically, tasting nothing but eating everything, not letting his attention stray to the door of their bedroom or to the man behind it.

It was easy to spend time with Shane, time slipped by and it was so believable that they knew each other like Shane said they did. Except for the way Shane looked at him sometimes, like he was different and unexpected. There were pot holes and moments of sudden disconnect which reminded them both all too clearly that they were strangers hanging on the edge of friendship.

Towards midnight, Rick settled Shane on the couch in the main room and closed himself into the bedroom.

It was warm and humid, it smelt like the two of them and he let his eyes adjust to the darkness as he undressed, pulling his clothes off slowly as he found the shape of Daryl curled up on his side of the bed, his back to Rick and the door.

The sheets rustled as Rick pulled them over him. He settled down facing the outline of Daryl’s back and breathed steadily into the warm darkness.

"He’s on the couch."

"I know."

"He’s leaving in the morning." Daryl grunted and there was the rustle of fabric as Daryl burrowed deeper into the sheets, his back shifting as he settled against the pillow he held against himself. 

Rick reached a hand forward and rested it against Daryl's hip, the skin warm, smooth and familiar against the rough skin of Rick's palm. When Daryl didn’t reject the contact he shuffled closer and aligned their bodies.

Closing his eyes, he breathed in the warm musky scent of the other man, nuzzling into the nape of his neck where sweat gathered under his messy hair.

He felt Daryl sigh and Rick let his hand slip down the other man’s stomach, low on his belly, just above his pubic hair. Daryl’s hand clamped around his wrist, tight as a steel band and moved Rick's hand away from him.

Rick remained close but allowed Daryl his space.

 

He couldn’t sleep. His body hyper aware of the other man in the house and the way Daryl had stopped him touching him.

The gaping hole in his mind seemed more pronounced than it ever had in Daryl's presence and it killed him a little inside to have his unknowable past shoulder in on this too.

After a couple of hours, he gave up trying.

Sighing, Rick pulled himself up from the mattress and sat on the edge of the bed. Staring into the darkness, his eyes absently traced the shape of their possessions in the dark.

He rubbed his hands over his stubbled cheeks and joined them before him. Elbows rested on his raised knees he looked blankly around the room, not letting his eyes settle on any one thing in case his mind latched on. All he wanted was rest, the calm blank which he’d been able to find in this room before.

There was the rustle of sheets as Daryl got up, kicking the sheet away angrily and pulling on his discarded jeans before making his way out of the room with silent steps without a glance spared in Rick's direction.

Rick followed, not bothering to do up the jeans he pulled on before chasing Daryl's shadow through the small house and out the door.

Pushing through the screen door at the back he tried to do it quietly but the creak of metal and wood was loud in the still night.

The yard was quiet and dark, nothing but the moon and stars to light them. Rick flexed his toes against the sharp, dry grass and watched Daryl pace in the moonlight.

He was beautiful like this, muscles gilded in moonlight, shirtless and barefoot he looked like he belonged, like there was nowhere else on this earth where he looked as comfortable.

"What is it?" Daryl turned on him, jaw set.

"What is it? Damnit Rick. _It_ is sleeping on our goddamned couch.” He rubbed angrily at his hair as he shook his head. "Your past caught up with you, only yours doesn’t want to beat the shit out of you. It’s just gonna take you away.” He spun on his heel and walked a few paces towards the woods.

Rick followed, grabbing hold of his shoulder and spinning Daryl to face him. He couldn’t catch Daryl if he made it to the woods and they both knew it. Rick rushed to stop him, to keep him away from the shadows that threatened to steal him away.

"I ain't going nowhere."

"Bullshit." Daryl hissed, Rick shook his head, raising his hand to cup Daryl’s cheek, only to rear back, hands up in surrender when Daryl jerked away and pulled out of his hold. "You belong to her! This wife you don’t even remember. You're still hers." Daryl’s eyes were narrowed towards the house though Lori wasn’t there. Rick stepped close and felt his heart squeeze when Daryl moved back. Daryl shook his head and looked towards the horizon.

When he spoke his voice was low and steady, determinedly neutral in a way Rick hated.  "You belong to that world whether you want to or not."

"That’s bull." Daryl shot him a look.

"No, it’s not. Don’t you get that? Whether you remember him or not, you are Rick Grimes, cop, father, husband, good man." He swallowed and hunched his shoulders as though against the cold, though it was a warm, humid night. “And this life?" One strong hand made a sweeping gesture that took in the house and the land around it before falling limply to Daryl’s side. "This ain't for you."

Rick ran his fingers through his hair and pulled at the curled ends as he looked at Daryl. “I thought you were better than that.”

“Better than what?”

“Them. Trying to dictate my life to me. Tell me who I am.”

“You’re the only one that doesn’t see it. You got a wife,” his jaw twitched, “and a kid. You got a fucking picture perfect life waiting for you and you’re playing house with some no good redneck with a target on his back.”

“I chose to be here. I chose you.”

“Only coz you don’t remember what you had.”

“I lived there for two months trying to pick it back up, I was on the road for a month before I met you. I could have stopped anywhere, I thought about it sometimes, settle down, become someone new but I didn’t want to, not until I met you and we did all this shit together.” Rick moved close, heart lifting when Daryl didn’t move away. “I like living here with you, I like waking up every morning before dawn to watch you dress. And yeah, you’ve got a target on your back but I’ve stood by you. I ain’t running, not from this.”

Rick carded his fingers through Daryl’s hair, lacing them into the length and cupping his head to pull Daryl forward into a kiss he melted into.

The kiss was slow but deep, they breathed in tandem and Rick felt like he was melting into the other man, the hot press of his mouth against his own and the taste of him, a little stale and tinged with the lingering trace of the meat they'd had for dinner.

When they broke away Daryl bowed his head and brushed his brow against Rick's jaw like a cat nuzzling before pulling away.

"I'm going for a walk, I'll be back." Rick nodded though he wanted to pull him back into his arms, sequester him in the house and not let him enter the woods where he could so easily disappear, just fall off the grid and never be seen again.

He watched as Daryl walked away, steps sure despite his bare feet.

Rick could imagine him as a tousle-haired kid playing barefoot in the woods, half wild and beautiful in his innocent freedom.

 

The house was still and dark when he entered but he knew Shane was awake without having to glance around. He was in the shadows of the kitchen, leant against the counter and eyes out the window over the sink.

"You loved Lori,” he started. A frustrated breath escaped Rick's lips but Shane shot him a glance and he remained silent, jaw set and hands on his hips, waiting. "You did. But you weren't the perfect couple either. You never talked about your feelings, never opened up.” Shane shook his head to himself, “Used to drive her crazy man, never knowing how you felt, what you were feeling. You'd fight sometimes, Lori ran hot, wanted to talk it out and be done. But you, you went cold. I've seen it, you'd clamp right up, cold as ice." He ran an assessing eye over Rick. "I think you didn't wanna scare her by flaring up, I've seen it and brother, it is scary. But you going cold scared her anyway.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Shane shrugged one shoulder, his eyes darting out the window as he licked his lips.

“I ain't ever seen you be the one chasing after it. You were a good husband, a good man, but you weren’t perfect.”

 

Rick watched the night shift to dawn through the bedroom window, his back to the unmade bed, legs kicked out on the ground between the wall and the mattress as he stared up at the lightening sky.

He’d had a beer with Shane, neither saying anything and it had been easy, like he believed it must have been before he lost his memories. Shane had gone back to the couch with a nod and a murmured goodnight and Rick had attempted to go back to sleep.

The bed felt empty without Daryl. They’d shared it every night since they made the decision to stay. It wasn’t unusual for one or both of them to drift away in the early hours, Daryl to the woods and Rick to the back yard where he sat and watched the world wake up.

They were both too restless to stay here forever, they’d both known that when they’d made the decision, but there was a comfort in a home-base, a place to settle and return to, a bed which welcomed them both.

The sky lightened to a pale silvery grey and the knot in Rick’s guts twisted like live snakes. The morning birdsong sounded muffled to his ears and the crisp morning air grated against his skin.

It wasn’t unusual for him to be up this early. He’d lost count of how many times he’d woken to the pre-dawn dark to Daryl dressing. Sometimes he paused to kiss Rick before hefting his crossbow and making his way out of the house on silent steps, sometimes he didn’t know Rick was awake.

Rick would lay in bed for a while longer, drifting in and out of sleep and letting the day start slow and sweet.

He hadn’t heard Daryl come home last night and it nagged at him like a bad tooth. His eyes strayed to the crossbow, so lovingly cared for, propped up in the corner where Daryl always kept it. It was a flimsy comfort but one he clung to. Daryl wouldn’t leave without that, he could do without anything else but that was too important, too personal for him to leave behind.

With a groan at his tired limbs, Rick heaved himself up and got dressed, his eyes out the window until he huffed at himself and pulled the blind back down, sending the room into dim shadows, the dawn light too weak to show through.

Shane was awake in the main room, elbows on his knees and head in his hands as he sat on the edge of the couch.

He straightened when Rick entered, nodded a greeting and pulled himself up. His large frame looked big in the worn room, shirt unbuttoned and boots untied on his feet he looked like he could have belonged there, on the road beside Rick and Daryl, but for the look on his face. He looked lost, out of place in the world and Rick knew Shane would never belong to the outside like Daryl did, like he thought he might.

“You want some breakfast?” Shane shook his head.

“Some coffee?” He asked hopefully, Rick nodded and set about the motions of making coffee, his hands steady and his attention unwavering from the task in front of him. “I’ma head out soon, wanna get on the road early, get back to King County.” Rick looked up and saw Shane’s attention out the front window, as though he’d already started the drive in his head.

They drank their coffee in silence, standing at opposite ends of the small kitchen.

Shane finished first, crossing to place his mug in the sink he paused, eyes out the window towards the woods and straightened his broad shoulders in what looked like a decision made.

When he turned around he smiled brightly at Rick before ducking his head and concentrating on doing up his shirt.

“Lori’ll want to know you’re okay. I’ll...” He trailed off, eyes darting from Rick to the window, “I’ll tell her you’re doing fine.” He cleared his throat thickly and strode across the room for the rest of his stuff beside the couch.

 

Rick cupped his hands tightly around the chipped enamel of his mug and flexed his toes in the dry dirt of the driveway as Shane leant against his car, squinting into the rising sun.

“It wouldn’t hurt to call every now and then. You had us fucking worried, man.” Rick nodded, gaze down at his coffee and sucked his lips into his mouth.

“I’m sorry.” He said to the black liquid that lapped at the sides of the pale enamel. He heard Shane huff but when he looked up he just looked sad.

“Just don’t disappear on us again.” His mouth worked as though he had more to say but he ducked his head, scuffing his boot against the dirt and turning abruptly to open the car door.

He braced his weight against the roof of the car, bowing his head and clenching his jaw before pushing off and approaching Rick with three quick strides.

Rick held his mug to the side on instinct and braced for a hit, for anger and betrayal but he found himself crushed to a broad, strong chest and held close in a hard hug. He clapped Shane on the back and they pulled away as one. Shane nodded at him before striding away and getting into his car.

Rick remained where he stood and watched the car disappear down the long drive and out of sight.

Looking up at the bright morning sun he flexed his toes against the dirt once more and concentrated on the feel of the breeze licking his skin and the sound of morning birds.

There was the crunch of a stick breaking with what he knew was a footstep. He angled his face towards the tree line and Daryl appeared out of the shadows, their eyes meeting across the distance.

“You want some breakfast?” Rick called before he raised his mug to his lips and swallowed the last mouthful, watching Daryl pause before approaching.

Daryl lowered his head in a nod and Rick turned towards the house, his steps sure and the hard knot in his guts unwinding, blooming warm and bright in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! a domestic situation for tough guys! -I'm super happy I managed that :P
> 
> I want to thank everyone who has Kudos and commented on this, it means the world to me and I love you all!
> 
> I really hope you've enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it, not gonna lie, I'm a bit proud of this one :D


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